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New to me Rainbow 100A and VR201

The Rainbow came with a Microline 83a, manuals and box of very old fan fold paper. I'm not interested in the printer. The belts look ok, probably needs a new ribbon a clean and oiling etc but looks in good condition. If anyone would like it and can collect from Merseyside send me a PM and you can have it for free. I won't post as I don't have any packaging.
 
I decided to try gnupublic's method but instead of nylon I use a guitar string, well two in fact as one snapped.(0.11 gauge Picato but I guess Ernie Ball's or Fender may work;). ***Safety first*** Use protective goggles and gloves in case the wire snaps or glass breaks*** This worked a treat, I put the wire in a hacksaw frame. I advise using single strand guitar wire not the heavier wound gauges unravel and may mark the glass. I cleaned off the remaining glue with a utility knife blade and then glass cleaner. The last couple of pictures are the VR201 and Rainbow powered up without the safety glass ( I don't advise powering on without the safety glass, but the suspense was killing me). Now to work out the best method to install and mount the glass.
 

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I'm getting keyboard error, its not the keyboard or the UK ROM as I've tried a US ROM and keyboard. Oddly enough if I press setup that works. Any ideas where to start? I have the VR201 circuit diagram, I'll start from there but thought I'd ask while I search. I have the Rainbow technical manual from Bitsavers, this has a lot of info to digest. Maybe someone has seen this error before and knows the resolution. A recent postee also has the same issue I believe.

Edit, Not much to look at on VR20 in regards to keyboard. +V appears ok with meter. I'll drag a cope out and check.

kbvr201.JPGlk201.JPG
 
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I checked the 12v with an oscilloscope and I'm actually measuring 11.96v, very little noise. Is this voltage to low? I don't see any adjustment in the technical manual. The fact that I can get into setup on the keyboard and use "ctrl setup" to do a reset. Also I can alter the parameters in setup hints to me that the keyboard and Rainbow are working so I'm wondering why I'm getting a keyboard error on power on?
 
I would say the 11.96 is fine and probably within its designed tolerance. In my limited electronics experience, voltages aren't always precisely 12.00000000000V.

At least you didn't blow a keyboard when I made an adapter for my Rainbow...

I've read anecdotes here and noticed myself that Rainbows seem to have an affinity for LK201-AA keyboards over others.
 
From the technical manual I have identified that the PUSART P8251A controls the keyboard along with a line driver and receiver, I haven't found the circuit diagram for the 100A but I'm guessing that the 74LS244 is the line driver and receiver both in one package. Neither IC's are in sockets. Can anyone confirm? I'm also doubtful that this either of these is going to be my issue. When I press each key on the LK201-AE I get a key click and I can go into setup and use the arrow keys and previous and next keys to scroll through the options. I can even use shift S to save and ctrl setup to do a reset. Anyone else had a similar issue? Thanks. The error that I see on screen is "Consult user manual - keyboard" I'm not with the Rainbow at the moment so the message displayed on screen is from memory and is probably slightly worded wrong.
 
I've contacted @PG31 to ask if he was willing to dump the Rainbow 100A's BIOS and language ROMs for inclusion in the MAME emulator, and he kindly agreed.
Unfortunately he has no means of reading the ROMs, and sending them from the UK to Germany is too much of a hassle.

I'd like to ask if any of the participants in this thread have already dumped the Rainbow 100a's ROMs (the B version is already present in MAME) and is willing to share them or alternatively if someone located in the UK has an EPROM reader and could dump the ROMs.

Robert
 
tradde said:
I sure wish I could help. I have a Rainbow 100A but no way to dump ROMs.
Click to expand...

The technical manual says ROM0 lives at 0xFA000, ROM1 lives at 0xFC000, ROM2 lives at 0xFE000 in 8088 address space. Each ROM is 8KB. Simple program to dump ROM contents?
 
Fellow Rainbow 100 enthusiast @Bavarese suggested trying the following commands to save the ROMs from DOS via DEBUG:


Code: 
--------------------------

C:\> DEBUG


-N DEC.BIN (output file will be named DEC.BIN)

-R BX (set BX=0000H/CX=6000H as count of bytes to write, 00006000H = 24K)

BX 0000

:0000

-R CX

CX 0000

:6000


-M FA00:0 6000 1000 (copy 24K from FA00:0 to offset 1000 in local segment)

-W 1000 (write from offset 1000 in local segment)

Writing 6000 bytes

-Q

------- end
 
DECtechGuy said:
At least you didn't blow a keyboard when I made an adapter for my Rainbow...
Click to expand...

Ugh I did the same thing with mine. Did you manage to repair the keyboard? I haven't even tried. I ended up buying another LK201-AA, and gave up making an adapter.
 
Nope, didn't feel like trying, but it's stored away. It was an LK401 though, but the pinout is the same as an LK201. I'd imagine both are the same in that they don't like it when the 12v and GND are swapped.
 
rfka01 said:
Fellow Rainbow 100 enthusiast @Bavarese suggested trying the following commands to save the ROMs from DOS via DEBUG:
Click to expand...

I also trying to get these ROMs for MAME and others. Will the this technique get the ROM contents for both the Z80 and Intel side - ie all the firmware?
 
"Well I'm not the world's most technical guy" (The Kinks, Lola) ... but from what I gathered, the Z80 doesn't have a proper ROM but is spoon fed from the 8088 side. That means the 24K resulting from the above procedure should contain everything we need and can then be split up into the three 8K parts.
 
If you can make a disk image, we can pull the file off it, serial transfer (e.g. using Kermit) is another option.
 
Ok, I have a file on an RX50 diskette. I have no way (that I know of) to transfer it somewhere else. I've used Kermit
in the past, but that was eons ago. My main PC is a MacBook Air. Tried hooking up a serial cable to the comm port
but I could get nothing to work.
 
Perhaps it’s something like a normal serial cable versus a null modem cable.

If you cannot get the serial method to work, you could mail the disk to someone that can read it. I’d be happy to try. I was successfully able to make some images of WordPerfect for the Rainbow.
 
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