News

Andrew Pepper has transfered his Newbrain Rufal Program to Visual Basic so we can enjoy the game straight on our windows desktop.

You can Download it following Downloads --> Programs

Have Fun!!!

A new tool to help map the PS/2 keyboard to the Newbrain Keys.

Replace the old one inside tools submenu.

!!!Attention!!!
If you put it in another directory you have to manually copy the files [Keymap.txt & Keymap1.txt] to the Newbrain emulator main directory. 

As a reminder:
Left Control on Ps/2 Keyb is the Control Key on NB.
Right Control on Ps/2 Keyb is the Graphics Key on NB.
Both Shift keys are the Shift Key on NB.

Those are hardcoded and CAN'T be changed.

New version 2.63 (Beta) is available at "Downloads-->Emulation"

Just The executable file. You need to have a previous version (2.62) and overwrite the executable with this one.


New visual design.
New menu design.
Selected Rom Version remembered.  
Minor changes.
Minor bugs corrected, 

Please report any bugs or suggestions.

On Games disk there is a Demo for the NB computer.
This Demo runs without problems only with version 2.0 Rom.
This Rom has faster graphics routines and should be backwards compatible with older programs.

Update: 20/07/2014




Video demo

A 4 wheel drive robot car using Arduino as microcontroller, 12v li-ion rechargable battery, a Bluetooth serial communication for receiving commands wireless.
Basic function forward, backward, stop, left and right turn.

Ultrasonic sensor for distance measuring Front mounted on a servo to look right and left

A LCD 16x2 screen for displaying messages

a Five Channel Tracing Photoelectric Sensor Tracking Module Infrared Detection for line tracing
a speaker buzzer for simple audio
a Laser 650nm
a laser sensor activated when hit by a laser beam
a light detector
Bluetooth Serial Com

I made a Scratch like program to program the robot to do and respond through its sensors Program commands are send remotely via Bluetooth

NB Laptop News.

2016

May 2



I tested both the RS232 with the real Newbrain Machine i manage to load through RS232 port 9 (LOAD#9).
I also tested the TTL interface with the NB Laptop this works ok too.



April 29


Here it is the final SD Card Module.
You can load and save files and there is support for RS232 to connect to a Real Newbrain and use the serial device #9 to load and save files.
All necessary files are at github.


March 11

I uploaded the entire NB Laptop project on Github.
It includes all the schematics, Source code on VHDL for the CPLDs, Assembly code for the z80 bootloader, tools and roms necessary to replicate the NB Laptop.
Also the Arduino code for the SD Card storage module.

https://github.com/cdesp/Newbrain-Laptop.git

March 4

I changed the code and now you can have as many files and directories as you want.
One limitation is that you can not have a directory within a directory at least for now.
Also i added another button STOP. this button Stops the Recording, or Playing of a file (just like the old times) because i do not have a way of knowing when the file is over.
So you press Play and when Newbrain finishes loading you press Stop.
Same for Recording.

The device is working ok on the breadboard. I am waiting for the sdcard module to arrive to put everything in a box with a PCB to connect the lcd, Sd card and RS232.
I am thinking of providing two RS232 interfaces one with 5V signals and one with the real 12V -12V signals (i ll use a MAX235 for this).


March 1

The new SD CARD module for software RS232 communication between NBLaptop and Arduino works ok. I manage to load files that was selected with arduino.



February 28

I made a new device 12 that uses the RS232 module with the 16550.
The Newbrain v24 device 9 that i had to patch in order to have it use the rs232 module is now as it was before the patch.
This software rs232 device i manage to connect with an arduino (softwareserial) but with the addition of CTS/RTS because Newbrain requires these signals.
I also manage to have a SDCARD module connected to the arduino and i ll use this connection to send an receive files to NB Laptop.
Once finished this module will replace Tape 1 as the default store device.

The arduino module has a 16x2 LCD display connect through a serial adaptor to save pins.
As i said it communicates with the SDCARD module to read files and save files.
The module will also have
2 buttons PREV and NEXT to find the desired file.
1 button to "PLAY" the selected file to the NB Laptop.
1 button "REC" to save the file send from NB Laptop.
"PLAY" button will also enter any directories that the user selects.

I have a problem with the available RAM memory on the arduino so for now you can have 20 files or directories each directory can have 20 files (400 files total).



February 14

A new video that shows the 4 graphics modes of the NB Laptop with reverse field.
The program was loaded through the RS232 using LOAD#9 and SAVE#9 from the NB Emulator on the PC.

https://youtu.be/Uvrsb35XG70

January 21

Ok, I fixed the bug with "RS232 receive" so now i can send and receive bytes through comport.

There is a list of all the newbrain machines out there working or not on the main menu.
Please login and add your machine to the list .

Check out the following YouTube video for the latest SD card interface to the Grundy NewBrain (working but still under development):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G5fARz7HnM