TechnoCAD by Technomatic

[Pernod]

I believe I have the ROM images from the TechnoCAD cartridge, it's Master only. But I don't think it's useful without a System disc that came with it.

Anyone have the TechnoCAD System disc? It's ADFS so would hope for a 640K ADL image.

[RobC]

Bit of a late reply but I have this if you're still looking for it.

[Pernod]

Bit of a late reply but I have this if you're still looking for it.

Yes please. I think what I have is a demo version that they produced, so dumps and photos of what you have should help clarify things.

[RobC]

Okay - pretty sure I have a good backup disk as well as the original and a copy on a hard drive. The manual is about 70 pages I think.

I'll try to get it done this week (along with the Master Replay manual). Time has been in short supply recently...

[RobC]

I know this is very late but I was backing up my DC hard drive tonight and realised that I had Technocad installed on it.

Here's an ADFS disk image with the TCAD folder on it - it should work but I haven't tested it. (I'd have imaged the floppy if I had a convenient way of doing so...)

[Pernod]

I know this is very late but I was backing up my DC hard drive tonight and realised that I had Technocad installed on it.

Thanks, but doesn't work. I'd rather have an image of the original floppy than have to hack at this to get it to work. It needs everything moving from the TCAD directory to root, and there's a reference to $.TCAD.Programs that needs correcting. The readme also states that both disc and ROM versions must match, so also need the ROMs dumping.

[RobC]

Here's an interleaved dump of the Technocad system disk. I believe it to be correct as doing a round-trip with JGH's DiskToImg and ImgToDisk resulted in a new working system disk.

I've also dumped the two ROM images which would usually be in two of the four cartridge slots (i.e. 0-3) using a ROM dumping utility. They can't be used in the sideways RAM slots on the M128 as Technocad apparently uses all four banks itself.

I tried running the whole thing in BeebEm but it gave an error - I don't know whether this is because the ROMs haven't dumped correctly, if it's an emulation issue or if the cartridge uses a PAL etc. I'll try dumping the ROMs using some other routine when I get a chance.

[Ukwebb]

any luck dumpng the roms ?
i would like to try to get this working with my plotter

[RobC]

Sorry no - I tried dumping them using another method but got the same result.

I don't want to open the cartridge as I can't do so without damaging it.

[Ukwebb]

I wonder if its just the emulator thats struggling with them?

Could possibly you send me the ROMS you have - I would have thought just an SRSAVE would extract them on a real master ?
or if you dont have a master - Could I loan your cartridge and extract them here ?
or I'm guessing the other option - is it for sale? ( although i doubt thats an option )

[RobC]

I wonder if its just the emulator thats struggling with them?

Could possibly you send me the ROMS you have - I would have thought just an SRSAVE would extract them on a real master ?
or if you dont have a master - Could I loan your cartridge and extract them here ?
or I'm guessing the other option - is it for sale? ( although i doubt thats an option )

I think that there's a PAL or similar device in the cartridge as a security measure but I don't want to open it up to check. I did an SRSAVE but that didn't seem to work.

And I'm afraid it's not for sale.

If you are just looking to drive your plotter from a Beeb, it shouldn't be too hard to write something that intercepts draw, move and plot VDU commands and sends the right codes to the plotter too.

[daveejhitchins]

Sorry no - I tried dumping them using another method but got the same result.

I don't want to open the cartridge as I can't do so without damaging it.

Is it a 'standard' Acorn Cartridge or 'special'?

If it's an Acorn one then I doubt that they would have gone to the expense of a hot-rivet tool - instead, like the rest of us making products in cartridges, we just used screws. Some companies fitted the screws and then a label which covered them - others, if the cartridge was meant to be opened, cut-out the lebel over the screws. This is easily done with Xcelite craft knife (with new blade) using the hole in the case as a guide.

Dave H.

[RobC]

Is it a 'standard' Acorn Cartridge or 'special'?

If it's an Acorn one then I doubt that they would have gone to the expense of a hot-rivet tool - instead, like the rest of us making products in cartridges, we just used screws. Some companies fitted the screws and then a label which covered them - others, if the cartridge was meant to be opened, cut-out the lebel over the screws. This is easily done with Xcelite craft knife (with new blade) using the hole in the case as a guide.

Hi Dave. I don't know how it's held together as the label covers the screws or rivets. I looked at opening it up before (when I couldn't dump the ROMs successfully) but can't see a way to remove the label without damaging it.

[daveejhitchins]

Is it a 'standard' Acorn Cartridge or 'special'?

If it's an Acorn one then I doubt that they would have gone to the expense of a hot-rivet tool - instead, like the rest of us making products in cartridges, we just used screws. Some companies fitted the screws and then a label which covered them - others, if the cartridge was meant to be opened, cut-out the lebel over the screws. This is easily done with Xcelite craft knife (with new blade) using the hole in the case as a guide.

Hi Dave. I don't know how it's held together as the label covers the screws or rivets. I looked at opening it up before (when I couldn't dump the ROMs successfully) but can't see a way to remove the label without damaging it.

You don't need to remove the label - If you press gently about 2/3 down on each side you'll 'feel' where the screws go. Find the centre and using a Xcelite knife just push the blade in. Then work the blade to the edge of the hole and from there just cut around the hole.

BUT, if you don't think that's doable - use a hair dryer to warm the label up and very gently peel it off! - Taking your time and not pulling too hard on the label as it will stretch.


Dave H.

[DutchAcorn]

I think that there's a PAL or similar device in the cartridge as a security measure but I don't want to open it up to check. I did an SRSAVE but that didn't seem to work.
...

I have some vague memory of SRSAVE not working well for the cartridge ROM sockets as a copy protection measure. Did you try dumping with a separate program? A disk image with a simple rom save program is attached.

[lovebug]

i can confirm technocad cartridge uses a pal chip for protection, i had seen inside one once

[RobC]

You don't need to remove the label - If you press gently about 2/3 down on each side you'll 'feel' where the screws go. Find the centre and using a Xcelite knife just push the blade in. Then work the blade to the edge of the hole and from there just cut around the hole.

BUT, if you don't think that's doable - use a hair dryer to warm the label up and very gently peel it off! - Taking your time and not pulling too hard on the label as it will stretch.

Thanks Dave - I might try the hair dryer method but I am terrible at this sort of thing. Believe it or not but I once had a job where trying to remove labels without doing any obvious damage was part of the role. I quickly found that I was useless at it so usually got a colleague to carry it out

[RobC]

i can confirm technocad cartridge uses a pal chip for protection, i had seen inside one once

Thanks Lovebug - that confirms my suspicions.

[Pernod]

Here's a floppy of what claims to be a demo version of TechnoCAD, which includes ROM images, also attached separately.

I don't think I ever managed to get it running, so the floppy image may be incomplete. It was found in some large collection of floppy images a few years ago and have no idea who has the original floppy it was imaged from.

[DutchAcorn]

Tried a few combinations in Beebem. Using the demo disk, I had to rename it to *.adl to get it to work in Beebem. The demo version automatically loads the rom images in sideways ram (using a Master).
It shows the entry menu. You can choose to show the instructions file (works).

After "pressing any key" it tries to load "CONFIGURE" but it ends in "Bad command".

With the TC2 disk image, using the demo roms, it boots ok, but pressing R to display the readme file actually shows a system file. So there seems to be something not quite right with this image.
After "pressing any key" it tries to load "CAD" but ends in "12 Undefined variable". This may be because the ROMs are incompatible, of course.

[lovebug]

some reads within the rom space control the pal chip but i dont know the exact function it performs, sorry

[lovebug]

i can also add that technocad was written in pascal , something to keep in mind when disassembling if the code looks a weird

[JeremySmith]

Hi
Just a quick message. I wrote the original Novacad for the Beeb back in 1982 - 1984 (it took a couple of years). Most of it was written in BCPL which was the only high level language available for the BBC Micro at the time which could produce small enough code. BCPL was the forerunner of B which then led on to C and C++. A lot of code was also written in assembler where I really had to save space, and BCPL interfaced easily with machine code. It often was a case of looking for a spare byte of memory, even using some from the cassette buffer. If my memory serves me still (it was a long time ago) Technocad used the same basic code but was expanded to use the extra features introduced by the Master, so if I remember correctly, it was also written in BCPL.

I hope this is of interest to the folk here and it is good to see people still experimenting with it. Sadly, I do not have any copies of the ROM or disks.