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Panasonic Business Partner 150 (Tandy 1100 FD) ROM image

A

acadiel

Experienced Member
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287
Dumped the 64K EPROM when I opened it up to change the drive belt.

View attachment business_partner_DA150A4_CF150.zip

BIOS ROM version 01.00.03. This particular unit did have what looks like a connector to add a hard drive.

The C: drive has DOS, DIAG.COM, DISKCOPY.COM, FORMAT.COM and SETUP150.COM. The setup and diag programs take the place of Deskmate on the 1100.

I do plan on taking deskmate and copying to a floppy and trying it on the BP150 from the 1100 just to see if it works. :)

Anyway, please archive... and if this can go to someone like the people that do emulation like PCem so they can get this emulation up and running, awesome!
 
acadiel said:
Dumped the 64K EPROM when I opened it up to change the drive belt.

View attachment 54829

BIOS ROM version 01.00.03. This particular unit did have what looks like a connector to add a hard drive.

The C: drive has DOS, DIAG.COM, DISKCOPY.COM, FORMAT.COM and SETUP150.COM. The setup and diag programs take the place of Deskmate on the 1100.

I do plan on taking deskmate and copying to a floppy and trying it on the BP150 from the 1100 just to see if it works. :)

Anyway, please archive... and if this can go to someone like the people that do emulation like PCem so they can get this emulation up and running, awesome!
Click to expand...

Was it a 44-pin 2-row header, or a goofy looking 50-pin?

This is from my 1100FD
IMG_20190720_180808109.jpg

I'm not sure if this is a proprietary hard drive connector or a truncated ISA bus. I'd like to put in a CF solution, but I need a pinout to figure out what this does, and I've been unable to find a technical manual anywhere.
 
I was looking at mine and I recall that I saw an article years ago on the Toshiba badged version, I found the article and I think it is possible it is a memory expansion to go to 1MB. The article lists the possible expansions and the only slot unaccounted for would be the memory expansion.

https://space-nerd.com/en/1990/05/2...150b-no-frills-laptop-features-bright-screen/

The Panasonic Business Partner’s expansion possibilities are severely limited. The standard unit ships with 640K of RAM, and DOS 3.3 stored in ROM. A 1MB upgrade is available and can be configured as extended memory or a RAM disk. An optional modem card resides in a dedicated slot at the rear of the unit, alongside the system’s only 2 ports: a 9-pin serial port and a parallel port. The Panasonic Business Partner CF-150B’s one 3.5-inch disk drive accepts 720K floppy disks, and there is no external monitor support.
Click to expand...
 
RetroGaming Roundup said:
I was looking at mine and I recall that I saw an article years ago on the Toshiba badged version, I found the article and I think it is possible it is a memory expansion to go to 1MB. The article lists the possible expansions and the only slot unaccounted for would be the memory expansion.

https://space-nerd.com/en/1990/05/2...150b-no-frills-laptop-features-bright-screen/
Click to expand...

That would make it a truncated ISA bus then. Even though the 8-bit ISA bus (XT) is 62 pins, you can yet by with about a third fewer pins if you don't need the IRQ or DMA functions. If so, I ought to be able to do up an ISA-CF board for it. I'll probably just have to probe around and figure out a pinout, because despite this thing being so "popular" among collectors, that technical manual does not want to be found!
 
At the very minimum a very easy adaptation for a memory expansion. But whatever signals are missing they could almost certainly be picked off easily from the motherboard. That said, a gotek would be the low hanging fruit that would adapt easily.
 
Well, as Saint Bill Gates said, "640K ought to be enough for anybody," lol

I thought Gotek was a floppy emulator though. That would have to branch from the floppy drive controller, wouldn't it? For a CF controller, it'd need (off the top of my head) about 3 more signals that a memory expansion would, if the header doesn't have them already.
 
It's that same goofy looking connector as yours, blackepyon...
 
The innards of the BP150 are here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0hzdh5kizj40ip/bp150.jpg?dl=0

Some differences between this and the 1100:

1) The riser board (stand alone) at the top left is populated, and has a ribbon cable that goes near the screen cable.
2) The ROM is different (and there appears to be empty space in it... it's 64K)

I'd be curious for that grey connector on the lower right as to what it looks like in the HD model. Does the HD plug straight into it? Or is there an adapter to translate an ISA bus before the HD?
 
acadiel said:
The innards of the BP150 are here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0hzdh5kizj40ip/bp150.jpg?dl=0

Some differences between this and the 1100:

1) The riser board (stand alone) at the top left is populated, and has a ribbon cable that goes near the screen cable.
2) The ROM is different (and there appears to be empty space in it... it's 64K)

I'd be curious for that grey connector on the lower right as to what it looks like in the HD model. Does the HD plug straight into it? Or is there an adapter to translate an ISA bus before the HD?
Click to expand...

Definitely the same goofy header in the BP150 as with the 1100FD. As far as we know, the 1100HD model has a normal ATA 44-pin 2-row ribbon header for a 2.5" laptop HDD. It would certainly make sense, without a hard drive, to use a RAM expansion for RAMDisk, so you can keep your program loaded and not have to keep swapping disks out.
 
RetroGaming Roundup said:
I was looking at mine and I recall that I saw an article years ago on the Toshiba badged version, I found the article and I think it is possible it is a memory expansion to go to 1MB. The article lists the possible expansions and the only slot unaccounted for would be the memory expansion.

https://space-nerd.com/en/1990/05/2...150b-no-frills-laptop-features-bright-screen/
Click to expand...

I actually have that now, thanks to an eBay find!

https://imgur.com/a/yOlTTvy

The Panasonic CF-BA161.
 
That was a terrific find - I saw the completed eBay auction for these - what a bargain for something that is pretty much unobtanium!

That is a great job of sleuthing, very impressed at your find and more than a little envious.

Don't forget to image those disks!
 
Juror22 said:
That was a terrific find - I saw the completed eBay auction for these - what a bargain for something that is pretty much unobtanium!

That is a great job of sleuthing, very impressed at your find and more than a little envious.

Don't forget to image those disks!
Click to expand...

I did... they’re just in the wrong thread. Whoops. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthre...-1-25mm-FPC-connector-one&p=621076#post621076

The dos disk isn’t bootable, so I just extracted all the files and zipped them. Same with the EMS disk; it’s only four files. The disks had errors in the unused parts of them - I have images, but the zips are essentially the same.
 
I ended up cobbling my own replacement battery together out of some generic Ni-Mh cells from Digi-Key. The onboard voltage regulator seems to take 7.2v from the battery just fine (I tried charging the cells to their maximum rated voltage), but the onboard charging circuit only goes up to 6.3v, which makes for a very long charge time. A Li-Po pack would probably get much better run time, but cobbling together the charge controller for one of those is a bit beyond my skill.
 
acadiel said:
Here's the Business Partner expansion ROM that lives at E000.

Labeled as "MEI, Microsoft and Tandy 1989, DA150C1".

This has a bulk of the DOS utilities in here, and portions are also in the BIOS.

View attachment 54949

Interestingly enough, Tandy is mentioned several places in the ROM, as is the 1100FD.
Click to expand...

I know this is an old post, but That is because it was always intended to be under both brands, and Tandy was involved in some of the software side of things.

Also, MEI stands for Matsushita Electric Incorporated, the parent company of Panasonic before they rebranded to Panasonic Corporation. The stylized M logo in a square with rounded corners found all over these PCBs is their makers mark as well.
 
acadiel said:
The innards of the BP150 are here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0hzdh5kizj40ip/bp150.jpg?dl=0

Some differences between this and the 1100:

1) The riser board (stand alone) at the top left is populated, and has a ribbon cable that goes near the screen cable.
2) The ROM is different (and there appears to be empty space in it... it's 64K)

I'd be curious for that grey connector on the lower right as to what it looks like in the HD model. Does the HD plug straight into it? Or is there an adapter to translate an ISA bus before the HD?
Click to expand...

Updating this picture link: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Av-aYi_HFwjjuJRXHXANNuCMefgpYg?e=rC58dg
 
acadiel said:
Updating this picture link: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Av-aYi_HFwjjuJRXHXANNuCMefgpYg?e=rC58dg
Click to expand...

You think that riser board might be a power supply for the backlight?

Also, do you think you could probe out which pins on the connector go to the data bus for the memory chips? Without that service manual, I'm starting to think that the only way we'll be able to use that connector is by reverse engineering the thing. My worry is that the address lines are buffered in one of those PGAs, which would make identifying them a bastard.
 
Last edited:
blackepyon said:
You think that riser board might be a power supply for the backlight?

Also, do you think you could probe out which pins on the connector go to the data bus for the memory chips? Without that service manual, I'm starting to think that the only way we'll be able to use that connector is by reverse engineering the thing. My worry is that the address lines are buffered in one of those PGAs, which would make identifying them a bastard.
Click to expand...

Yep, that riser is for the backlight inverter. It gets its power/control from that ribbon cable going to the right.

You can retrofit one into another 1100FD.

I did try ordering a service manual from UED.net for the CF-150. Not sure if they will be able to fulfill it, and their ordering system is wonky.

SHIPTO 05/13/20 MSC SM-CF150B SERVICE MANUAL $19.64 0 0 0 0
SHIPTO 05/13/20 MSC SM-CFBA161 SERVICE MANUAL $9.00 0 0 0 0
 
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