8BitsNoneTheRicher Posted December 8, 2022 Share Posted December 8, 2022 I'd been looking for one of these machines for years, and finally found one that checked all the boxes: Sorcerer II, 48k RAM, everything works, non-insane price--and I got it in its original box! I also found someone willing to sell me their spare BASIC ROM-Pac, which also works! I need to open the machine up and start replacing capacitors, but for now I think I'll just putter around with it for a couple of days. 17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arnuphis Posted December 9, 2022 Share Posted December 9, 2022 It's great when you land something you have hunted for over the years. Never seen one of these in the flesh. Look forward to seeing it in action. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fiddlepaddle Posted December 9, 2022 Share Posted December 9, 2022 Me and a buddy co-wrote a video game for one of these in our spare time after school at a local computer store right after the machine came out, and sold a few copies through the display case at the computer store. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+eebuckeye Posted December 9, 2022 Share Posted December 9, 2022 Very cool! I wish there was a mass storage device for it but the market is pretty limited. 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hwlngmad Posted December 9, 2022 Share Posted December 9, 2022 17 hours ago, 8BitsNoneTheRicher said: I'd been looking for one of these machines for years, and finally found one that checked all the boxes: Sorcerer II, 48k RAM, everything works, non-insane price--and I got it in its original box! I also found someone willing to sell me their spare BASIC ROM-Pac, which also works! I need to open the machine up and start replacing capacitors, but for now I think I'll just putter around with it for a couple of days. Congratulations. This was one helluva machine when it came out. Too bad it never got the support and/or attention it deserved. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8BitsNoneTheRicher Posted December 9, 2022 Author Share Posted December 9, 2022 11 hours ago, eebuckeye said: Very cool! I wish there was a mass storage device for it but the market is pretty limited. 🙂 The closest thing I've seen to an SD card to Sorcerer adapter is some work that was done with a "Teeny 3.5" microcontroller. Someone got this to work by directly wiring it to the cassette port's UART. If you Google around a bit you can probably find the pages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8BitsNoneTheRicher Posted December 9, 2022 Author Share Posted December 9, 2022 1 hour ago, Hwlngmad said: Congratulations. This was one helluva machine when it came out. Too bad it never got the support and/or attention it deserved. I agree. I think the thing that hurt the Sorcerer was that color systems (Atari 400/800, etc) came out shortly after it was released. The S-100 capabilities we really advanced though, and the built-in parallel and serial ports were unheard of at that time. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krebizfan Posted December 9, 2022 Share Posted December 9, 2022 The Microbee has a lot in common with the Sorcerer. The Australian Dreamdisk controller works on both systems. Some software works on both. I don't know how hard it would be to convert other add-ons to the Microbee into ones for the Sorcerer. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jltursan Posted December 14, 2022 Share Posted December 14, 2022 (edited) Congrats!! Quote I need to open the machine up and start replacing capacitors In my own experience (two Sorcerers), these machines seems to have good quality capacitors. None has needed a recap yet and work flawlessly (famous last words). Quote The Microbee has a lot in common with the Sorcerer. The Australian Dreamdisk controller works on both systems. Some software works on both. I don't know how hard it would be to convert other add-ons to the Microbee into ones for the Sorcerer. Good to know!. Microbee's resources are scarce in the net, does it exist an schematic for this "Dreamdisk" floppy controller? Edited December 14, 2022 by jltursan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krebizfan Posted December 14, 2022 Share Posted December 14, 2022 (edited) 42 minutes ago, jltursan said: Good to know!. Microbee's resources are scarce in the net, does it exist an schematic for this "Dreamdisk" floppy controller? Surprisingly available. There is a schematic and the user manual has instructions for attaching the controller to the Sorcerer's power supply. https://www.microbee-mspp.org.au/ has an incredible array of documentation for the Microbee. The four files regarding the Dreamdisk can be found in the retro repository under Microbee/Documentation/User_Manuals. There is also a set of directories with Sorcerer information under the Vintage category but I don't know how much of that is not in other Sorcerer repositories. The software changes to the root directory after every file I download which will make getting all four files take a bit longer than necessary. Edited December 14, 2022 by Krebizfan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8BitsNoneTheRicher Posted December 14, 2022 Author Share Posted December 14, 2022 49 minutes ago, jltursan said: Congrats!! In my own experience (two Sorcerers), these machines seems to have good quality capacitors. None has needed a recap yet and work flawlessly (famous last words). Good to know!. Microbee's resources are scarce in the net, does it exist an schematic for this "Dreamdisk" floppy controller? I read a writeup someone did on an unearthed Sorcerer where the machine ran for a few seconds after not being powered up for years and one of the filter caps blew up. Made me a bit nervous. As rare as this thing is, I would prefer not to take my chances! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8BitsNoneTheRicher Posted December 14, 2022 Author Share Posted December 14, 2022 12 minutes ago, Krebizfan said: Surprisingly available. There is a schematic and the user manual has instructions for attaching the controller to the Sorcerer's power supply. https://www.microbee-mspp.org.au/ has an incredible array of documentation for the Microbee. The four files regarding the Dreamdisk can be found in the retro repository under Microbee/Documentation/User_Manuals. There is also a set of directories with Sorcerer information under the Vintage category but I don't know how much of that is not in other Sorcerer repositories. The software changes to the root directory after every file I download which will make getting all four files take a bit longer than necessary. This is great information, thank you! I wasn't looking forward to having to pump .WAV files into the cassette port via a laptop as the means of getting software loaded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 On 12/9/2022 at 12:21 PM, 8BitsNoneTheRicher said: The closest thing I've seen to an SD card to Sorcerer adapter is some work that was done with a "Teeny 3.5" microcontroller. Someone got this to work by directly wiring it to the cassette port's UART. If you Google around a bit you can probably find the pages. https://forum.pjrc.com/threads/55633-queued-Tape-Simulator-for-Exidy-Sorcerer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jltursan Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 Is there a STM32 version?. Teensy units are now rare as hen's teeth (except maybe the LC model) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 No, teensy 4 is at microcenter, in stock. https://www.microcenter.com/product/611090/TEENSY_40_Development_Board;_ARM_Cortex-M7_at_600_MHz;_1984K_Flash;_1024K_RAM_(512K_tightly_coupled);_1K_EEPROM?storeID=191 I could drive to overlandpark and get one right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted December 19, 2022 Share Posted December 19, 2022 8 hours ago, jltursan said: Is there a STM32 version?. Teensy units are now rare as hen's teeth (except maybe the LC model) No. Teensy 4 won't work because it's not tolerant of the Sorcerer's 5V signals. I saw a Teensy 3.5 on Amazon today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wierd_w Posted December 20, 2022 Share Posted December 20, 2022 Sad. Those are running between 60 and 120$ retail, with low inventory availability. It would be cheaper by far to add a 3<->5v dc-dc converter and a level shifter to a teensy 4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jltursan Posted December 21, 2022 Share Posted December 21, 2022 Yep, probably easier than migrate the code. I've never programmed these kind of devices but seems that between Teensy and STM there're quite some differences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted December 23, 2022 Share Posted December 23, 2022 Teensy is programmed with extended Arduino libraries. Install Teensyduino on top of the Arduino IDE. Also install the SDFAT library. Teensy 4.1 includes a micro SD slot. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8BitsNoneTheRicher Posted December 25, 2022 Author Share Posted December 25, 2022 Hey all, of course I meant "Teensy" and not "Teeny." Thanks, autocorrect. I've now sourced all the caps I needed for the power supply board and will start on that project when I get back from my holiday. After that I will look into options for some kind of SD "disk" for the Sorcerer. Speaking of microcontrollers and such, I've been a little distracted with my new "MisterFPGA" rig! Great fun. Hopefully someone creates a Sorcerer core for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jltursan Posted December 27, 2022 Share Posted December 27, 2022 Now you mention it, I don't know of any FPGA implementation of the Sorcerer. Seems a simple architecture; but who knows... The only "massive" storage solutions I know for the Sorcerer are the ClausB's Teensy-based tape reader and the uIDE; but this last one is only a possibility as it need to be paired with a complete set of drivers to be operative, and there're none right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8BitsNoneTheRicher Posted January 9, 2023 Author Share Posted January 9, 2023 I've now completed the re-cap of the power supply board. The 1500uF cap was bulging pretty badly, probably cooked from being fairly close to a large 5W resistor on the board. Now that I'm sure it won't blow up, I've been playing with it quite a lot. I also managed to locate at Teensy 3.5 board, which I probably overpaid for at about $65 but options were few. Now to figure out how to configure the Teensy. Soldering it in looks super simple--only 4 pins soldered to the Sorcerer's UART. Wish me luck! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted January 12, 2023 Share Posted January 12, 2023 On 1/9/2023 at 11:55 AM, 8BitsNoneTheRicher said: Soldering it in looks super simple--only 4 pins soldered to the Sorcerer's UART. Be sure to bend those UART pins out slightly so they don't go in the socket. That keeps them from connecting to the existing cassette circuit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8BitsNoneTheRicher Posted January 12, 2023 Author Share Posted January 12, 2023 Hi Claus, thank you for commenting. I recognize you as the creator of this marvelous bit of tech for our ancient Sorcerers. Amazing work! I have a couple of small questions regarding getting the Arduino and Z-80 code onto the Teensy. I can PM you if you don't mind. With your permission I might document the whole process for the other 3 people worldwide that are Exidy Sorcerer owners. I saw your advice to another user regarding pulling out those UART pins. I also saw that he'd had some clearance problems under his power supply board which led to him soldering the Teensy leads to the UART. After thinking it over, I'd prefer NOT to solder to that chip so I am buying some very low-profile clip leads which hopefully will eliminate that problem. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 2 hours ago, 8BitsNoneTheRicher said: he'd had some clearance problems under his power supply board It's also an option to add spacers to the posts that hold the power board to raise it up at one end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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