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Hi – Nice people who seem to like Cortex. I know you can all relate when I say I have “saving” a bunch of stuff cos it might be useful in the future ( admit it we all have boxes of stuff). Well I have all the parts for a Cortex computer. Actually, I have two motherboards fully populated, I have the original case (still in it’s box) I even have the original magazine ETI from 1982 which has the build article. I have some original documentation and a never used floppy disk for the box.
Is anyone interested in having this?
It’s all free to a good home if you pay the shipping. Or pick it up. (Boston area)
 
glaiket_wean said:
Hi – Nice people who seem to like Cortex. I know you can all relate when I say I have “saving” a bunch of stuff cos it might be useful in the future ( admit it we all have boxes of stuff). Well I have all the parts for a Cortex computer. Actually, I have two motherboards fully populated, I have the original case (still in it’s box) I even have the original magazine ETI from 1982 which has the build article. I have some original documentation and a never used floppy disk for the box.
Is anyone interested in having this?
It’s all free to a good home if you pay the shipping. Or pick it up. (Boston area)
Click to expand...

Hi,

Are you Boston in Lincolnshire, or Boston in the US?

Stuart.
 
Oh man! This is what I get for not paying attention to every forum to which I belong. If there's a chance that one of those boaeds is still available Id give it a good home!
 
Following an email discussion with John Walker (author of MDEX and NOS, founder of Autodesk), he created a few pages on his website about Marinchip:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/marinchip/

The photo of the I/O board is credited to me, but it is really Jim Hearne's. I'll write to John to get that corrected.
 
I've googled around and think I've done my due dilligence, so I'll go ahead and ask: has anyone in the States done a run of the mini-cortex PCBs? I'd love to snag one, but I've never ordered direct from a manufacturer (and I don't need 20).
 
nuxi said:
I've googled around and think I've done my due dilligence, so I'll go ahead and ask: has anyone in the States done a run of the mini-cortex PCBs? I'd love to snag one, but I've never ordered direct from a manufacturer (and I don't need 20).
Click to expand...

Mini-Cortex PCB - send me a PM.
 
Hello everyone,

Cortex Mk1 owner here, I built the machine when it first appeared. After many years in storage in the attic I tried it this week but unfortunately it no longer fires up.
My machine is very basic due to lack of funds at the time, it has the cassette interface only.
Are there any resources that might assist me with fault finding ? I looked through a lot of this thread but it takes a while ;)
What I've tested so far;

1. The power supply is all okay
2. 12MHz clock pulse is okay
3. continuity of chip pins to PCB are okay

Currently the BASIC LED is constanlty ON
The MEM LED flashes once after power is switched on
IDLE LED is OFF and does nothing
RUN LED goes OFF when REST button is pressed then comes back on very dim.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Doug.
 
PokePeek said:
Hello everyone,

Cortex Mk1 owner here, I built the machine when it first appeared. After many years in storage in the attic I tried it this week but unfortunately it no longer fires up.
My machine is very basic due to lack of funds at the time, it has the cassette interface only.
Are there any resources that might assist me with fault finding ? I looked through a lot of this thread but it takes a while ;)
What I've tested so far;

1. The power supply is all okay
2. 12MHz clock pulse is okay
3. continuity of chip pins to PCB are okay

Currently the BASIC LED is constanlty ON
The MEM LED flashes once after power is switched on
IDLE LED is OFF and does nothing
RUN LED goes OFF when REST button is pressed then comes back on very dim.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Doug.
Click to expand...

Hi Doug,

Do you also go by the name of Thomas, who sent me an e-mail on exactly the same subject? Or has the unseasonably warm weather got two old Cortex owners to drag their machines out of their attics? ;-)

I'd suggest the first step is to test the DRAMs, as they seem to go bad fairly frequently. If you want to send me a PM, I'm happy if you want to post your DRAMs and EPROMs to me for testing in my Cortex, to help isolate the fault.

Stuart (in the UK)
 
Stuart,

Many thanks for your message, yes it's the same person, what's the chances of two ?
I sent you an email because I thought my first post here had failed to pass the "Moderator Test" having taken several days to show up.

That is a very generous offer to test my chips and I will send you a PM now.

Many thanks
Doug.
 
Hi folks,
Just fetched my Cortex out of storage, and to my delight she still boots up just fine.
I have initial version, with the twon 5.25 disk expansion installed. I've yet to find any of my original disks for it though...
Anyone out there got any of the expansion boards that were briefly available - e.g. the memory expansion, or maybe a VGA style connector for modern day monitors?
I'd like to resuscitate this and maybe even build a few add-ons for it.
Thanks,
Dawn
 
Hi Dawn,

Glad to hear another Cortex is out there alive and well. Take a look through this thread to find out some interesting history on the Cortex along with hopefully some answers to your questions. More or less all disks have survived and are available in one form or another and it is possible to create disks from your Cortex with the use of a PC and a couple of utilities.

Most of us on this forum get notified when someone posts something but for some reason or other, new posts can take a few days before this happens.

All the best,

Dave.
 
That's very kind of you Stuart! Been meaning to do that for years...

I'll have to put Version 2.1 up which is needed for NOS. I'll try and give the manual a read and see if there is anything you can add (e.g clicking a 'floppy drive' can be used in addition to F1-F4, and pressing CTRL while clicking a drive ejects a floppy image).

Dave.
 
Yes, this thread will give you a lot of useful Cortex data. A lot of the available documentation can also be found here and on the WHT site.
 
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