RobPattonDotCom Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Has anyone seen one of these in action? Do you know if it uses the same software as the Happy 1050? It looks just like a Happy 1050 clone. A few things moved around, but generally the same board. I guess I could swap the smirk rom with a happy rom and see if it still works. Anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Defender II Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 No clue about the software, but even though it looks very similar the EPROM code may not be compatible. Very nice find. Looks like a quality board that had a production run. There should be more of them out there somewhere. I wouldn't mind having one. Where did you discover it? (besides in a 1050 ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 There are others (Happy clones that is ), most famous is Laser (or warp laser to give it's proper name), Hyperdrive (a copy/clone of laser) and a european variant, slightly faster (sio speed wise) called Speedy/super speedy 1050 If this is an american Happy clone,, the only thing that comes close is 'Duplicator 1050' (which does ALMOST all the things that happy does) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobPattonDotCom Posted July 15, 2008 Author Share Posted July 15, 2008 No clue about the software, but even though it looks very similar the EPROM code may not be compatible.Very nice find. Looks like a quality board that had a production run. There should be more of them out there somewhere. I wouldn't mind having one. Where did you discover it? (besides in a 1050 ) It was for sale, and I couldn't resist. Since I had never seen one before, nor had I even heard of one before. I'm gonna get the ROM dumped soon, so I'll be able to post that for others to play with, but I'm thinking its someone's clone of a happy, they did look to do a very good job. Funny how they ground off the chip #s so no one could "copy" them. I never did own a Happy 1050 (had an 810) but I do have a 1050 duplicator still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Hello Carmel There are others (Happy clones that is ), most famous is Laser (or warp laser to give it's proper name), Hyperdrive (a copy/clone of laser) and a european variant, slightly faster (sio speed wise) called Speedy/super speedy 1050 If this is an american Happy clone,, the only thing that comes close is 'Duplicator 1050' (which does ALMOST all the things that happy does) The Speedy is not a Happy clone and neither is the Duplicator 1050. I'm not sure about the Laser and the Hyperdrive. A clone is an identical copy. Speedy, Duplicator 1050 and Happy are NOT the same thing and they are not ripp off of each other. Clones are ripp offs. Greetings Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Funny how they ground off the chip #s so no one could "copy" them. Yeah, it's usual practice. Though it's still possible to determine what they are... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Indeed it looks like a Happy clone, and a very good one. Not that I've seen too many, but I don't recall seeing a Happy clone that included the connector for the Happy Controller, as this one has. You can't just swap the ROM however. The original Happy had a banked ROM for protection purposes, it included the bank-switch logic internally on the chip. Clones usually use a regular eprom and reproduce the banking behavior with external logic. Btw, Mathy is of course right. The Duplicator and the Speedy aren't "clones". The Duplicator is almost the same idea, but with a different board, firmware and software. The Speedy, AFAIK, was partially inspired in the Happy, but it is less targeted towards copy protection, and have some other type of features. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobPattonDotCom Posted July 15, 2008 Author Share Posted July 15, 2008 So what plugs into the header? I've always thought that was just a test/diag point. Was there ever some form of control panel? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 Hello guys Guus Assmann once mentioned a version of the Happy that had a track display. I never heard of it before and I never heard of it since. Maybe this is where the display is connected. Greetings Mathy PS the Super Speedy (special version of the Speedy. Not even 10 were ever build) can duplicate disks without copying data to the computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 (edited) Hmmm... it's marked "J1", with J2 apparently being the 5-pin connector on the left. I'd like to take a look at the traces on the other side of the board... The 40-pin IC is probably a FDC, the 28-pin U5 some memory chip. RAM, likely? As the EPROM is on the top left edge and this isn't a PROM... and I don't think it's a custom ROM. Oh, I get it: THAT is the FDC, the 40-pin IC is the processor. The 14- and 16-pin ICs are most likely TTL gates... as ijor said, it's probably the external logic the non-Happy designs used. Again, I'd like to take a look at the backside... Edited July 15, 2008 by machf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobPattonDotCom Posted July 15, 2008 Author Share Posted July 15, 2008 Hmmm... it's marked "J1", with J2 apparently being the 5-pin connector on the left. I'd like to take a look at the traces on the other side of the board... The 40-pin IC is probably a FDC, the 28-pin U5 some memory chip. RAM, likely? As the EPROM is on the top left edge and this isn't a PROM... and I don't think it's a custom ROM. The 14- and 16-pin ICs are most likely TTL gates... as ijor said, it's probably the external logic the non-Happy designs used. Again, I'd like to take a look at the backside... Ask and you shall receive. I guess all the Happy 1050s I saw were later models, as they were smaller and didnt have that header. Sounds like a neat mod to add. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted July 15, 2008 Share Posted July 15, 2008 So what plugs into the header? I've always thought that was just a test/diag point. Was there ever some form of control panel? You plug the "Happy Controller". It was an extra optional product from Happy. It included two manual switches plus a led. One to select between slow and fast speed. Very handy for slowing the Happy down without booting the Happy software. The other was a 3 position switch for managing write protection (hardware write protect, hardware write enable, and follow the disk write protection). Hmmm... it's marked "J1", with J2 apparently being the 5-pin connector on the left. I'd like to take a look at the traces on the other side of the board... The 40-pin IC is probably a FDC, the 28-pin U5 some memory chip. RAM, likely? As the EPROM is on the top left edge and this isn't a PROM... and I don't think it's a custom ROM. J2 is where you plug the Controller. J1 is the reverse side of the connector that plugs into the 1050 board. The 40-pin IC is the CPU, and the 28-pin one is the RAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machf Posted July 16, 2008 Share Posted July 16, 2008 J2 is where you plug the Controller. Oh... I see. J1 is the reverse side of the connector that plugs into the 1050 board. I thought so, but the first pic looked a bit like there was nothing on the underside. The 40-pin IC is the CPU, and the 28-pin one is the RAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sup8pdct Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Indeed it looks like a Happy clone, and a very good one. Not that I've seen too many, but I don't recall seeing a Happy clone that included the connector for the Happy Controller, as this one has. You can't just swap the ROM however. The original Happy had a banked ROM for protection purposes, it included the bank-switch logic internally on the chip. Clones usually use a regular eprom and reproduce the banking behavior with external logic. Btw, Mathy is of course right. The Duplicator and the Speedy aren't "clones". The Duplicator is almost the same idea, but with a different board, firmware and software. The Speedy, AFAIK, was partially inspired in the Happy, but it is less targeted towards copy protection, and have some other type of features. Has any one tried to fix an original Happy board with a defective rom? I had to add 2 (I think) LS chips to emulate the bank switched rom. A rats nest of wires but at least it worked. At least 2 of the LS chips on this clone would be used to emulate the bank switched rom. Finding which 2 is the next challange James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Indeed it looks like a Happy clone, and a very good one. Not that I've seen too many, but I don't recall seeing a Happy clone that included the connector for the Happy Controller, as this one has. You can't just swap the ROM however. The original Happy had a banked ROM for protection purposes, it included the bank-switch logic internally on the chip. Clones usually use a regular eprom and reproduce the banking behavior with external logic. (snip...) Interesting... I didn't know that the original Happy rom was banked. But what kind of rom would have that ability -- "included the bank-switch logic internally on the chip?" I've got several Happy's -- two original and one that is probably a clone. I need to open those drives up and look at the chips to compare them. -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 Interesting... I didn't know that the original Happy rom was banked. But what kind of rom would have that ability -- "included the bank-switch logic internally on the chip?" ROMs with a small amount of extra logic were quite common. Many 2600 games had it. I don't know/remember if the Happy had a masked ROM or not. Possibly not, and it was a PROM. But for sure that the banking was on chip, or at least "on die". Because the whole idea is that you couldn't dump it or reverse engineer the bank-logic. Of course, that protection attempt wasn't too successful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Guitarman Posted July 17, 2008 Share Posted July 17, 2008 You plug the "Happy Controller". It was an extra optional product from Happy. It included two manual switches plus a led. One to select between slow and fast speed. Very handy for slowing the Happy down without booting the Happy software. The other was a 3 position switch for managing write protection (hardware write protect, hardware write enable, and follow the disk write protection). I have a Happy 1050 with the optional controller installed. It is very convenient for switching modes. I often wondered why someone didn't create a clone of the controller circuit since it is a great addon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RobPattonDotCom Posted July 18, 2008 Author Share Posted July 18, 2008 If you ever got a chance to open that up and see what pins were what, that would be cool to document. I've never seen one installed, though I've always seen the ver7 that didnt have that header. Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 (edited) I've never seen one installed, though I've always seen the ver7 that didnt have that header. I don't think there was any original 1050 Happy that lacked the connector for the Controller. If you never seen the header, then chances that you never seen an original board. Edited July 18, 2008 by ijor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 (edited) You plug the "Happy Controller". It was an extra optional product from Happy. It included two manual switches plus a led. One to select between slow and fast speed. Very handy for slowing the Happy down without booting the Happy software. The other was a 3 position switch for managing write protection (hardware write protect, hardware write enable, and follow the disk write protection). I have a Happy 1050 with the optional controller installed. It is very convenient for switching modes. I often wondered why someone didn't create a clone of the controller circuit since it is a great addon. There was at least one Controller clone -- I can't think of the name right now, but it was sold by a guy in the Detroit area (Dearborn, I think) and was advertised frequently in ANTIC. The same guy made/sold memory upgrades including a 128K and IIRC, a 192K upgrade for the XEGS. Incidently, Happy Computers, Inc also made a "Cheer Up" mod that supposedly gave the Duplicator full Happy functions. -Larry Edited July 18, 2008 by Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 Hallo Larry Was that Innovative Concepts? They were located in Warren, Michigan. This is what I found in their 1989-1990 products catalog: Immitator Controller For 1050 owners with a genuine HAPPY board installed: Gives you control over: fast/slow - read/write, and the following 3 modes for write protect: 1) normal, 2) OFF (CANNOT write), and 3) ON (CAN write). No more disk notching! Also, it has a two color LED, to monitor write protect status. Requires drilling only 3 holes. NO soldering, uses plug-in connectors! A DIRECT REPLACEMENT, for the Happy 1050 controller! (discontinued) Price was $39,95 Greetings Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 Hallo Larry Was that Innovative Concepts? They were located in Warren, Michigan. This is what I found in their 1989-1990 products catalog: Immitator Controller For 1050 owners with a genuine HAPPY board installed: Gives you control over: fast/slow - read/write, and the following 3 modes for write protect: 1) normal, 2) OFF (CANNOT write), and 3) ON (CAN write). No more disk notching! Also, it has a two color LED, to monitor write protect status. Requires drilling only 3 holes. NO soldering, uses plug-in connectors! A DIRECT REPLACEMENT, for the Happy 1050 controller! (discontinued) Price was $39,95 Greetings Mathy Hi Mathy- Yes, that was the one I was thinking of. -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1050 Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 I have a Happy 1050 with the optional controller installed. It is very convenient for switching modes. I often wondered why someone didn't create a clone of the controller circuit since it is a great addon. Perhaps because B&C still sell the Happy 1050 with and without the optional controller? I'm just saying perhaps? I never saw enough good info on one to make my own though. I'm not trying to say that this would be a valid work around to the issue outlined above, I'm just saying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 At one time, I wrote down the wiring diagram for a Happy Controller after working on someone else's drive that had one. I'll post if I ever find it. The Happy used a 2600 style banking ROM. I discovered this by accident when I was trying to read it. I discovered there was a taunting message to hackers in the 2nd bank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted July 21, 2008 Share Posted July 21, 2008 I have a Happy 1050 with the optional controller installed. It is very convenient for switching modes. I often wondered why someone didn't create a clone of the controller circuit since it is a great addon. Perhaps because B&C still sell the Happy 1050 with and without the optional controller? I'm just saying perhaps? I never saw enough good info on one to make my own though. I'm not trying to say that this would be a valid work around to the issue outlined above, I'm just saying. I believe Bruce has the remaining stock of Happy Computers, so if anyone has it, B&C does. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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