Date   : Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:54:23 -0500
From   : jules.richardson99@... (Jules Richardson)
Subject: A500 development ROMs

Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
>> Message-ID: <49008071.6040403@...>
>  
> Jules Richardson wrote:
>> Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
>>> Has anybody every come across the A500 development ROMs? Every time
>> Hmm, were they originally Brazil in ROM, or did they run something
>> else?
>  
> I'm not sure. I though Brazil was what the PC Springboard used, and
> so communicated via the PCI bus with the PC. 

ISA, not PCI - at least the pair I have. I think the Springboard was long dead 
as a product before PCI really came along.

The ARM Eval Kit also has Brazil in ROM (albeit only 16KB), as did the M4 - 
it's not really an OS, but more of a program loader (and I think there's a 
rudimentary debugger buried in there too).

It's possible that the A680 was Brazil-based too (given that the M4 is), 
although the 128KB A680 ROM dump I have identifies itself as 'UNIX boot 
system'...)

It would fit date-wise for the A500 to be Brazil-based, I think, but it's by 
no means a certainty. I'm also guessing Acorn used Brazil as a catch-all for 
'ARM supervisor', so the Brazil flavour varies between products.

> in <http://mdfs.net/Mirror/Archive/Acorn/Spring.zip> suggest. The
> A500 communicated through a Tube link with a BBC/Master.

Although I don't think they *had* to have a TUBE link present - the ones I've 
seen have a pretty enormous keyboard to them. (Unless you're talking about the 
A500 copro, not the A500 machine?? Never have figured out why Acorn used the 
same system designation for two completely different boards!)

If nobody coughs up the ROMs anyway, I'll do some digging - if I don't have 
them buried in backups here, then I know someone I can ask who I think may be 
able to provide them.

cheers

Jules