Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

User avatar
MADrigal
Site Admin
Posts: 1189
Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2013 1:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by MADrigal » Fri Sep 23, 2011 12:08 pm

i think it's almost impossible that all those peripherals (specially the RAM modules) are compatible with all models - because they're strictly tied to the CPU RAM map of every specific model.
maybe the disk drive is compatible with more models, but probably not all of them, specially the Apple II clones.
User avatar
carlsson
Posts: 507
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:39 am
Location: Västerås, Sweden

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by carlsson » Thu Nov 01, 2012 9:28 pm

Now I'm the proud owner of a Laser 500 in a leather case. I took a screenshot:
Image

It has two toggle switches on the bottom side for channel 3-4 and B&W or colour picture. It is also capable of displaying 80 columns. Actually I find the composite video output more crisp and clear in 80 column mode than 40 column mode.
User avatar
MADrigal
Site Admin
Posts: 1189
Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2013 1:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by MADrigal » Thu Nov 01, 2012 10:16 pm

huh? you must be kidding! :-)
User avatar
carlsson
Posts: 507
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:39 am
Location: Västerås, Sweden

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by carlsson » Fri Nov 02, 2012 1:19 pm

Authentic, don't you think? :lol: Yes, the boot up screen was faked by me but the default colour schemes of the VTech Laser 500 and the Commodore 64 are identical. I think some MSX (?) and Atari computers also boot to the same colour scheme: light blue text on darker blue background and a light blue border.
User avatar
Scouter3d
Posts: 646
Joined: Mon Jun 28, 2010 7:02 am
Location: Wien
Contact:

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by Scouter3d » Fri Nov 02, 2012 1:54 pm

Hi Carlsson,

Since last week i am also a proud owner of a Laser 500.
See more here: http://www.8bit-homecomputermuseum.at/c ... er500.html

Mine has an american keyboard but displays german characters/keyboardlayout! very strange (maybe someone changed the keyboard or the charactermap is kind of switchable?)

Greetings TOM:-)
User avatar
carlsson
Posts: 507
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:39 am
Location: Västerås, Sweden

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by carlsson » Sat Nov 03, 2012 9:22 pm

In case you missed it, the thread on AtariAge is still alive:
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/18 ... -computer/
User avatar
MADrigal
Site Admin
Posts: 1189
Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2013 1:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by MADrigal » Wed Mar 06, 2013 4:38 pm

Since I got an addit. boxed joystick for the Salora Manager, I decided to test it on the console today.

I tried the "Astro Pinball" game, which has an odd behaviour on the Salora Manager: the left and right buttons are SWAPPED (you control the left flipper with the right button, and vice versa).

I thought it was because of my joystick, I thought it was faulty but.... well the new joystick does the same. So I think the joystick work fine, that must be the game "uncompatible" with the Salora Manager PIA.

My question is: Anders, would you test Astro Pinball on your Laser 2001, and tell me what's the behaviour of the Astro Pinball game?

I suspect that Astro Pinball was never released for the Laser 2001 (actually I've never seen a Laser/Salora version of the cartridge), for this specific reason.

Hm... I should test Chopper Rescue, that's the other game which makes use of both joystick buttons... Luckily enough I have both the Creativision and Salora Manager version of that cartridge. It would be cool if the ROMs are different: the CV version with correct buttons layout, and the Salora version with specific "hack" to the ROM program, in order to manage swapped buttons. :-)
User avatar
MADrigal
Site Admin
Posts: 1189
Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2013 1:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by MADrigal » Wed Mar 06, 2013 10:50 pm

I made a short BASIC listing to disassemble the "BIOS", nothing special, just a for-next cycle with "print chr$(peek(x))" in it. I peeked around 1000 locations from 49152 onwards, and found out the BASIC interpreter ROM, so I suppose it's there for the upper 16K from $c000 to $ffff

Peeking locations 0 to 1000 returned "random" results, I'm pretty sure there should be RAM area to ensure compatibility with Creativision hardware.

Some day I should unsolder the BIOS, dump it and spread it for emulation purposes. :-)
User avatar
carlsson
Posts: 507
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2008 7:39 am
Location: Västerås, Sweden

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by carlsson » Wed Mar 06, 2013 11:23 pm

Yup, I can try my machine with said games some day. You mentioned the swapped buttons before.

Hm, doesn't the 2001 have a parallel port? I'm wondering if it can be programmed from BASIC to output one byte at a time, and then have something in the other end to receive the data. If so, there would not be any need to desolder the ROM. Of course with a good amount of RAM, one probably can POKE and CALL a machine code routine too, if BASIC isn't up to it.
User avatar
MADrigal
Site Admin
Posts: 1189
Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2013 1:00 pm
Contact:

Re: Laser 2001 & Salora Manager - official thread

Post by MADrigal » Thu Mar 07, 2013 5:03 pm

> Hm, doesn't the 2001 have a parallel port?

There's an "expansion port" which, I presume, you can plug an I/O interface to.


> I'm wondering if it can be programmed from BASIC to output one byte at a time,
> and then have something in the other end to receive the data.

A parallel printer would do good in my opinion, with a BASIC program that "LPRINTs" the hex code to paper. :-)


> If so, there would not be any need to desolder the ROM. Of course with a good
> amount of RAM, one probably can POKE and CALL a machine code routine too,
> if BASIC isn't up to it.

BASIC has the CALL function, and it's used to execute ASM games on cassette tape, like the Sonic Invader you have. :-)
Post Reply