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FreHD issues on Model 4P

B

Baltok86

New Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2019
Messages
5
Location
Florida, USA
I’ve been trying to get this thing to work and so far no luck. I tried setting it all up with the supplied SD card and boot floppies and nothing. The green light blinks when the SD card is inserted so I’m guessing the FreHD is working.

I then downloaded the auto boot file from http://members.iinet.net.au/~ianmav/trs80/downloads.htm and tried with and without the floppies I got with the FreHD and while sometimes the green light will blink for a quick second I get nothing on the screen. Not sure what else to try :/
 
Just curious if you eventually got this to work. I have a 4P coming my way and I am interested to add a FreHD to it at some point.
 
Vorticon said:
Just curious if you eventually got this to work. I have a 4P coming my way and I am interested to add a FreHD to it at some point.
Click to expand...
I have a 4P which I use with a FreHD, and it works perfectly.

It's a GA model, with no mods, so needs the boot floppy, or the autostart file with modifier key at startup, but it's been faultless. Just make sure the FreHD cable is the right way up on the expansion port, or it won't work!
 
AndyO said:
I have a 4P which I use with a FreHD, and it works perfectly.

It's a GA model, with no mods, so needs the boot floppy, or the autostart file with modifier key at startup, but it's been faultless. Just make sure the FreHD cable is the right way up on the expansion port, or it won't work!
Click to expand...
Good to know. Thanks. By GA I assume you mean Gate Array display i.e green phosphor, which is what I have. Would this not work on the first version of the 4P?
 
Yes, gate array with the green phosphor screen. And while I haven't got a prior white phosphor non-GA model, I am pretty sure FreHD works with that in the same way.
 
I have a Model 4P gate-array version working with the FreHD.

I formatted the SD card on a Windows machine as FAT32 with a 4096 block size.
Then using the instructions on this thread by AndyO (THANK YOU!) : https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/frehd-power-supply-and-model-4p-boot.80244/

I downloaded from http://members.iinet.net.au/~ianmav/trs80/downloads.htm Section "AUTO-BOOT Files for the Trs-80 Model4p (Unmodified 4Ps with standard Boot ROM)" - First standard LSDOS 6.3.1 zip file.
Unzip'd the archive and copied the "hard4-0" hard disk image onto the SD card.
Took the SD card back to the FreHD.
Power on the FreHD
Power on the Model4p (nothing in the floppy drives)
*Miracle* it booted from the FreHD!

The Model 4P has a much more flexible boot ROM.
Hope that's of some help - it's mostly duplicating what Andy said in that thread. *sorry*
I just did it last weekend, so it's still fresh in my memory.
 
Could someone please upload the files from http://members.iinet.net.au/~ianmav/trs80/downloads.htm ? That link has been dead to my attempts for several days now. I recently got my hands on a 4P and I'm looking for a FreHD. The one seller that I've located won't sell if I can't get those files, because he doesn't want to sell something I might not be able to use.
 
I've a M4p none gate with green screen and it works well with frehd and the new bootrom.

Noe I have a 2nd 64kb ram but read that i need an other GAL/PAl chip to upgrade to 128kb.
Is there anywhere the logic to burn a new gal/pal for the none gate version ?
 
RDuckey said:
Could someone please upload the files from http://members.iinet.net.au/~ianmav/trs80/downloads.htm ? That link has been dead to my attempts for several days now. I recently got my hands on a 4P and I'm looking for a FreHD. The one seller that I've located won't sell if I can't get those files, because he doesn't want to sell something I might not be able to use.
Click to expand...

The website of Ian is a little pain...
Please look there:
 
fritzeflink said:
I've a M4p none gate with green screen and it works well with frehd and the new bootrom.

Noe I have a 2nd 64kb ram but read that i need an other GAL/PAl chip to upgrade to 128kb.
Is there anywhere the logic to burn a new gal/pal for the none gate version ?
Click to expand...

Correction:

I had just a talk with Trash-eighty and he corrected me that there is no need for an other GAL/PAL.
It seemd that I was halve sleeping reading the text below. For M4p I added a red frame on page 3.
 

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My sincere thanks to those providing help. I always seem to be late to the party when it comes to retro gear. Every item that I want to get to upgrade an old machine stopped being produced 1-3 years ago. If I'm lucky I can track down the last one available.
 
There are apparently a few FreHD devices and kits available on eBay still, but it's hard to imagine these devices ceasing production. I'm pretty sure Ian has been the only manufacturer of them, but there are too many of us who have found them invaluable for there not to be a market for them, and the FreHD's inventor still has background information on them at http://www.vecoven.com/trs80/trs80.html and a GitHub page at https://github.com/veco/FreHDv1

It is true though that as the potential market for modern devices used with old systems dwindles, some things get hard to find or just vanish. A great shame if FreHD does go that way. On the other hand, when I was bemoaning the disappearance of the NADSbox floppy emulator for my TRS-80 Model 100, a brand new emulator that was even better suddenly came to market to replace it. There's a lot of life and interest in these old systems yet!
 
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