"Arnold V" Specification

"Arnold V" Specification
Issue 1.4
12th March 1990
Amstrad PLC

© Copyright Amstrad plc

PRODUCT RANGE - AMSTRAD HOME COMPUTERS

1) WHY THE NEW RANGE?

2) THE 1990 RANGE

3) MARKETING PACKS

* Free game to be advised

4) AVAILABILITY

5) HOME COMPUTER PLUS RANGE SPECIFICATION



GX4000 464+ 6128+
Processor Z80 Z80 Z80
Memory 64k 64k 128K
Configuration ROM cartridge Cassette/ROM Cartridge 3" disk/ROM Cartridge
Colours 32 from 4096 32 from 4096 32 from 4096
Softscroll * * *
Splitscreen * * *
Sprites 16 16 16
Sound Stereo ASG Stereo ASG Stereo ASG
Joystick Ports:
Digital x2 x2 x2
Analogue x1 x1 x1
Monitor Choice Mono/Colour Mono/Colour Mono/Colour

6) LAUNCH TIMETABLE

Month Activity
April Presentation to major customers in launch market
May Production start up
End June/July Press conference in Paris for leading home computer publicatons. maximum 10 Editors per market
August Software available
September Launch in all markets across specialist and consumer press. Volume supplies in retailers
October Advertising in home computer/youth publications
November/December Heavy-weight advertising - TV, National Press.

CONTENTS

1 PRODUCT RANGE OVERVIEW

1.1 Common Features
1.2 Amstrad 464 Plus
1.3 Amstrad 6128 Plus
1.4 Further Variants

2 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

2.1 Hardware Sprites
2.2 Colour palette
2.3 Split Screen facility
2.4 Programmable Raster Interrupt
2.5 Soft scroll facility
2.6 Automatic feeding of sound generator
2.7 Vectored interrupts
2.8 Enhanced ROM cartridge support
2.9 Analogue paddle ports
2.10 PAL subcarrier locking
2.11 Locking of enhanced features
2.12 Eight-bit printer support
2.13 Floppy disc data separator
2.14 Power Requirements

3 SOFTWARE SPECIFICATION

3.1 6128
3.2 464

4 MECHANICAL SPECIFICATION

5 DISPLAY DEVICES

5.1 Monitors
5.2 Modulator/Power Supply units

6 NATIONAL VARIANTS

7 PACKING LIST

APPENDIX I - New Register Map

APPENDIX II - Connector pinouts

1 PRODUCT RANGE OVERVIEW

This project will provide a more sophisticated and stylish replacement for the existing CPC464 and CPC6128 computers. This will be achieved by:

1.1 Common Features

The casework will consist of a new two piece set of plastic mouldings. This will contain a horizontally mounted, double-sided PCB assembly on which are mounted most of the electronics for the computer. A small, vertically mounted, daughter PCB will provide the connector for a ROM cartridge. Any size ROM cartridge from 16k x 8 up to 512k x 8 can be installed. The firmware, fitted to the main PCB on earlier CPC computers, is supplied in a ROM cartridge.

All expansion and peripheral device connectors will be mounted on the main PCB. In addition to the connectors used on the existing CPC range, there will be: The computer will provide stereo sound via additional pins on the monitor connector, as well as from the stereo sound socket.

All existing CPC electrical features will be provided, plus some new features. There will be complete backward compatibility except that: The following new features will become available once a software "lock" has been opened, thus preventing existing CPC software from accidentally invoking them: The functions of display monitor and power supply are provided by either: The old CPC6128 keyboard is used, except that the colour scheme will be changed and the connecting cable will exit in a different location.

1.2 Amstrad 464 Plus

This variant will have an integral cassette tape drive, and 64k bytes of dynamic RAM. It will be supplied with a ROM cartridge containing the system firmware plus the BASIC language, disk firmware and a game, although it is not possible to select the disk firmware.

1.3 Amstrad 6128 Plus

This variant will have an integral 3" floppy disk drive (5V only) plus a 36-way Delta (Centronics style) expansion socket allowing a second 3" drive to be added. The 6128 Plus will be supplied with a ROM cartridge containing the system firmware plus the BASIC language, disk firmware and a game. 128k bytes of dynamic RAM will be fitted to the main PCB.

1.4 Further Variants

Unlike the existing CPC range, the size of dynamic RAM and whether or not a disk drive is installed are separately configurable options. It is therefore possible to produce a "4128" (128k diskless) or "664" (64k with disk) variant. Also, it is possible to increase the number of analogue input channels to eight.

2 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

The technical specification is essentially similar to the existing CPC 464/6128 range, with some enhancements. This specification should therefore be read in conjunction the "Amstrad CPC 6128 Software Interface Spec" Issue 2, 17th February 1985. New features will be added by changes to the ASIC and main PCB circuitry.

The overriding concern in the specification of this new product range has been the need for total backward compatibility with the existing CPC range. Many of the new features within the ASIC employ new registers, which can be mapped to replace the page of RAM from 4000 to 7FFFh in the CPU memory map, by setting a bit pattern in an I/O port. Before this port is allowed to "exist", a deliberately obscure I/O sequence is needed. This mechanism protects existing software from accidents such as killing its own RAM page.

The following new features are to be provided by changes to the ASIC device and the main PCB electronics:

2.1 Hardware Sprites

Sixteen hardware sprites will be provided by the ASIC.

Each will consist of an array of 16x16 pixels of four bits per pixel. A sprite pixel will be "transparent" when it has a value of zero, thus allowing 15 sprite colours. The sprite pixel data will exist in memory mapped registers within the ASIC, from address 4000h. The lower four bits of each byte will contain the data for a single pixel. The first 16 bytes contain the data for the upper scan line, starting at the top left hand corner of the sprite. 15 more similar scan lines of 16 pixels each will follow, thus each 256 (0100h) byte block of register space will contain one sprite. When the data for a sprite is read or written, that sprite will be removed from the display for the duration of the access. Thus sprite data should only be accessed during retraced time or while the raster is scanning somewhere else, otherwise there is a risk of disruption of the display.

The position on screen of the upper left corner of each sprite, and the X and Y magnification, will be defined by five registers for each sprite:

A2 A1 A0
0 0 0 X position LSB
0 0 1 X position MSB
0 1 0 Y position (scan line) LSB
0 1 1 Y position MSB
1 0 0 bits 3,2 = X magnification, bits 1,0 = Y magnification


The position registers will be read/write, and will accept numbers in two's complement form. They should only be changed during retrace or when a sprite is off. Data written to these registers should be between +767 and -256 for X, and between +255 and -256 for Y, otherwise the sprites will appear in strange positions. With standard 6845 timing (64us scan lines, 200 visible lines), "on screen" positions at maximum sprite magnification are -64 to +639 in x and -63 to +199 in y. A sprite will not be displayed if either the vertical or the horizontal positions outside the on screen range. The magnification registers are cleared to zero at reset, and are write only. They are coded as:

0 0 Sprite not displayed
0 1 Magnification x1
1 0 Magnification x2
1 1 Magnification x4


The sprite control registers will exist on 8-byte boundaries from addresses 6000 to 607Fh for sprites 0 to 15 respectively.

All sprite characteristics will be independent of the main screen mode, the unmagnified pixel size being as for screen mode 2 (640x200). Sprite colours will be defined by fifteen entries in the colour palette (see section 2.2 below). Thus sprites can be in different colours and resolutions from the rest of the screen. Sprites may overlay with each other or the border, and are prioritized so that the border has the highest priority, followed by sprites 0 to 15 in sequence, then the main screen data. Thus sprites always appear "in front of" the main screen and "behind" the border.

2.2 Colour palette

The existing colour palette within the ASIC, which selects 17 of 27 possible colours, will be replaced by a new palette which selects 32 of 4096 colours. This will be accessed through two ports. The primary port will provide full access via 32 registers of 12 bits, i.e. 4 bits each for red, green and blue.

For compatibility with existing models a secondary port will provide access to the first seventeen registers only (i.e. main screen colours and border), via the existing five bit interface. A block of logic will map the five bit colour written to the "palette memory" location onto the equivalent 12 bit colour, which is then written to the palette at the address selected by the "palette pointer register".

The primary palette port is between addresses 6400 and 643Fh, each pair of bytes representing one entry in the palette. The most significant byte will contain the GREEN information in the lower nibble (D3-D0), and the other byte will contain RED (D7-D4) and BLUE (D3-D0).

This ordering of colours has been selected to give the most consistent grey scale possible on a monochrome display (green is brighter than red, which is brighter than blue). However, because of the need to retain compatibility with the existing 27 level grey scale, the colours are summed with a 9:3:1 weighting rather than the 256:16:1 weighting which would be required to make the 12 bit word fully monotonic.

The primary palette registers appear in RAM low byte first, so that they can be loaded via a single 16-bit LD instruction, e.g. LD (6400h),0F00h would set the main colour zero to bright green. The palette will be dual ported so that there are no restrictions on when it can be accessed.

The primary port palette registers will be:

6400-641Fh main screen colours 0 to 15
6420-6421h border colour
6422-643Fh sprite colours 1 to 15


The secondary port registers will be:

00-0F main screen colours 0 to 15
10-1F border colour

2.3 Split Screen facility

Three new memory mapped registers will be added within the ASIC, to provided a horizontally split screen facility. One at address 6801h will define the scan line after which the screen split occurs. A value of zero (as at power on reset) will turn this feature off.

The other register pair at 6802h and 6803h define the start address in memory (similar to R12 and R13 respectively in the 6845, and therefore high byte first) which represents the location in memory from which to start displaying data for the lower screen. This will allow the lower part of the picture to come from a separate memory area, and be separately scrolled. However, note that soft scrolling (Section 2.5 below) will act on the whole screen.

Note that care should be taken with programming this facility such that the screen split does not alter the function of address bits A1-A8 and the dynamic memory refresh is not upset. This can be accomplished by setting the start of the second screen to lie on a 16k boundary. Note that the value in register pair 6802h/6803h is the first displayed line, and not the start address of the 16k block.

2.4 Programmable raster interrupt

A new 8 bit memory mapped register (PRI) will be added within the ASIC at address 6800h, which is cleared at power up. If zero, the normal raster interrupt mechanism will function as before. Otherwise, an interrupt will occur instead at the end of the scan line specified. In either case, this facility can provide a vectored interrupt (see section 2.7 below). The PRI can be reprogrammed as required to produce multiple interrupts per frame.

2.5 Soft scroll facility

A memory mapped 8 bit soft scroll control register (SSCR) will be added within the ASIC at 6804h, to allow scrolling of the screen by pixels rather than just by characters as at present. It will be cleared at reset. This soft scrolling mechanism will affect the whole of the main screen, regardless of the split screen facility, but it will not affect sprites.

The lower four bits (D3-D0) of the SSCR define a horizontal delay of between 0 and 15 bits i.e. high resolution (mode 2) pixels. This shifts the screen image to the right by the value programmed, "losing" pixels behind the right border and instead displaying random data on the left. It is left to the programmer to ensure that the delay value is always a multiple of the number of bits per pixel.

The next three bits (D6-D4) will be added to the least significant three bits of the scan line address, thus determining which of the eight 2k blocks contains the data for the first scan line on the screen. The effect of this is to shift the display up by the number of scan lines programmed, "losing" what would otherwise be the first lines to be displayed, and instead appending extra lines to the bottom of the screen.

The most significant bit (D7), when set, causes the border to extend over the first two bytes (16 high resolution pixels) of each scan line, masking out the bad data caused by the horizontal soft scroll. Software which intends to use horizontal soft scroll should have this bit always set, so that the screen width does not keep changing.

Setting the SSCR to zero, as at reset, (i.e. no offsets, normal border), will of course effectively disable the soft scroll.

2.6 Automatic feeding of sound generator

An automated process will be added to feed data to the sound generator from three instruction streams in main memory without CPU intervention. Three separate channels will each fetch one 16-bit instruction during horizontal retrace time. These instructions must be in usual Z-80 format, i.e. least significant byte first, and must be aligned to word boundaries (i.e. address of first byte must be even). Once the three instructions have been captured, they will then be executed sequentially. The maximum achievable update rate to the PSG is thus equal to the horizontal scan rate of 15.625 kHz per channel.

The available commands are:

0RDDh LOAD R,D Load 8 bit data D to PSG register R (0<=R<=15)
1NNNh PAUSE N Pause for N prescaled ticks (0<N<=4095)
2NNNh REPEAT N Set loop counter to N for this stream (0<N<=4095), and mark next instruction as loop start.
3xxxh (reserved) Do not use
4000h NOP No operation (64us idle)
4001h LOOP If loop counter non zero, loop back to the first instruction after REPEAT instruction and decrement loop counter.
4010h INT Interrupt the CPU (see section 2.7 below)
4020h STOP Stop processing the sound list.


Note that :

  1. REPEAT Loops cannot be nested. Only one is allowed to be active per instruction stream at any time.
  2. REPEAT 0 and PAUSE 0 instructions will have no effect, i.e. they are equivalent to NOP.
  3. Control group (4xxxh) instructions can be logically ORed to produce more complex instructions, e.g. INT|STOP = 4030h = Interrupt and stop.
  4. The STOP instruction will leave the source address register pointing to the next instruction, so that the instruction stream can be continued after CPU intervention.
  5. The argument field (N) of the REPEAT instruction is actually the number of times the loop is taken. The block of code between REPEAT and LOOP instructions is therefore executed N+1 times.


A DMA control and status register (DCSR) will control which channels are currently enabled, and also tell the CPU which channel is interrupting, to allow use of this facility in the non-vectored Z80 interrupt mode 1. The channel enable bits in this register enable each "DMA" channel separately, and can be set by the CPU, and cleared by either the CPU, a STOP instruction, or power on reset. The interrupt bits will be set when a channel is requesting an interrupt, and cleared when the CPU writes a "1" to the appropriate bit, or by an interrupt acknowledge cycle in the vectored mode (see section 2.7 below)

The control and status register bits are:

D7 R Raster interrupt (see 2.7 below)
D6 R/W Channel 0 interrupt
D5 R/W Channel 1 interrupt
D4 R/W Channel 2 interrupt
D3 Unused (write 0)
D2 R/W Channel 2 enable
D1 R/W Channel 1 enable
D0 R/W Channel 0 enable


Each channel will have a 16 bit source address register (SAR) and an 8 bit pause prescaler register (PPR). These will be memory mapped, from address 6C00h, as follows:

6C00h Channel 0 address, LSB
6C01h Channel 0 address, MSB
6C02h Channel 0 prescaler
6C03h unused
6C04-6C07h Channel 1, as above
6C08-6C0Bh Channel 2, as above
6C0Fh Control and Status register


The SAR must be loaded by the CPU with a physical address between 0000h and FFFEh. This means that the most significant two bits select which pages 0 to 3 of the DRAM is used, and the remaining bits are the address relative to the page start. The DMA process is not affected by DRAM mapping register. Note that the least significant bit of the address is ignored, and the instructions are always fetched from word boundaries.

The pause prescaler will count N+1 scan lines (where N is the value written by the CPU), giving a minimum tick of 64us, and a maximum of 16.384ms. When set nonzero by a PAUSE instruction, the pause counter for a particular channel will be decremented every tick until it reaches zero. Therefore, if the PPR is set to a value N and a PAUSE M instruction is executed, the total delay time between the instruction before the PAUSE and that following the PAUSE will be M * (N+1) * 64us. Pauses of between 64us and 67s may thus be generated.

The ASIC will arbitrate accesses to the parallel interface device between the "DMA" channels and the CPU, allowing only one to access it at a time. CPU accesses to the 8255 could be held off by means of wait states for up to a 8 microseconds if the "DMA" channel is currently executing a LOAD instruction. After a LOAD is executed, the ASIC must put the PSG address register back as it was before. To achieve this the 8255 parallel peripheral interface and the 74LS145 decoder will be integrated into the ASIC.

The exact timing is based on 1us cycles as follows. After the leading edge of HSYNC from the 6845, there is one dead cycle followed by an instruction fetch cycle for each channel which is active (i.e. enabled and not paused). The execute cycles then follow for each active channel. All instructions execute in one cycle, except that LOAD requires at least 8 cycles. An extra cycle is added to a LOAD if the CPU is accessing the 8255, or two extra cycles if the CPU access was itself a PSG register write.

2.7 Vectored interrupts

The ASIC will produce interrupts from four sources: the raster interrupt and the three sound generator "DMA" channels. The ASIC will always supply a vector which can be used by the CPU in interrupt mode 2 or ignored in mode 1.

The top 5 bits of the vector will be supplied form bits D7-D3 of a memory mapped interrupt vector register (IVR) at address 6805h in the ASIC, and the next two bits will determine the source of the interrupt.

Bit 0 of the vector will always be zero.

D2 D1 D0
0 0 0 "DMA" channel 2 interrupt vector
0 1 0 "DMA" channel 1 interrupt vector
1 0 0 "DMA" channel 0 interrupt vector
1 1 0 Raster interrupt vector


The value written to bit D0 of the IVR controls whether sound channel interrupts are automatically cleared, but has no effect on the vector itself. The contents of register 6805h are undefined at reset, except that bit D0 will be set to 1. Software should always set up the IVR before placing the CPU in vectored mode.

The interrupts are prioritiesed in a fixed sequence. The raster interrupt has the highest priority, followed by sound channels 2 to 0 respectively. For compatibility with earlier models, the raster interrupt is reset either by a CPU interrupt acknowledge cycle, or by writing a 1 to bit D4 of the mode and ROM enable register. The sound channel interrupts are cleared by writing a 1 to the relevant bit in the DCSR. To simplify vectored interrupt systems, they may also be cleared automatically by a CPU interrupt acknowledge cycle. This feature is enabled by writing a 0 to bit D0 of IVR.

Bits D6-D4 of the DCSR are set if interrupts from sound channels 0 to 2 repspectively are active. Bit D7 will be set if the last interrupt acknowledge cycle was for a raster interrupt. These bits can be ignored by software which uses vectored interrupts, or by software which does not use the DMA channels. However, software which uses DMA interrupts in non-vectored mode must inspect these bits, giving highest priority to the raster interrupt, because this interrupt is cleared automatically. Failure to observe this requirement may result in raster interrupts being missed. Also, the least significant bit of the vector register must be "1" (as at reset), otherwise bits D4-D6 of the DMA status register will be cleared before the CPU gets a chance to read them!

Software which uses interrupts from expansion cards must always use Z80 non-vectored interrupt mode 1, because the expansion bus does not support vectored interrupts.

To summarize, vectored software should place a valid vector (D0 = 0) into the IVR. The hardware will supply a different vector for each interrupt source, and all interrupts are acknowledge automatically.

Non vectored software must write a "1" to bit D0 of the IVR, or leave it in it's reset state. Interrupt service software must examine bit D7 of the DCSR first, followed by bits D4-D6 (in any sequence) to identify the interrupt source. DMA interrupts must be acknowledged by writing a "1" to the relevant DCSR bit.

2.8 Enhanced ROM cartridge support

Currently, 32k of firmware ROM exists in two 16k blocks. The low block is at addresses 0000 to 3FFFh, and the high block at C000 to FFFFh. Expansion ROMs were mapped into C000 to FFFFh by writing a code to I/O address DFxxh. The disk ROM was code 0 or 7, depending on the state of an expansion signal.

The new range will have no on board ROM, but will instead have a cartridge slot which can support ROM cartridges of up to 4Mbits (512k bytes, or 32 pages of 16k bytes). This will mean that cartridge games cannot be copied, because there is no firmware available when the game is installed. However, any software house producing a game where the intermediate state of play or high score table can be saved must produce their own driver software.

The upper 5 ROM cartridge address lines will be controlled by the ASIC via the existing ROM mapping port (at DFxxh), and hence will define which of the 32 pages are mapped to the upper ROM block (C000 to FFFFh). The machine will be supplied with a ROM cartridge containing the firmware and BASIC, and, where applicable, the disk ROM.

For values less than 128 written to the mapping port, the "BASIC" page of the cartridge will always be selected at the high ROM block address, unless the value last written to the mapping port matches the current disk ROM code (i.e. either 0 or 7), in which case the "Disk" page will be selected. For values greater than 127, the lower five bits will set the cartridge ROM page number directly, so that the cartridge may be addressed at pages 128-159.

The existing expansion ROM mapping scheme uses port DFxxh and ROMDIS on the expansion bus, will still functions. The only change will be that ROMDIS can now disable the disk ROM, and selecting the disk ROM will not cause ROMDIS to be activated. An expansion card ROM mapped at any page takes priority over the same page number in the cartridge.

In addition, new bits will be defined in the mode and ROM enable (MRER) register at I/O address 7Fxxh. Currently, D7 = 1 and D6 = 0 to select this register, and D5 should be 0. It has been proposed that, if this register is written with D5 = 1, the bottom five bits will be redefined. This new register will be known as the secondary ROM mapping register (RMR2). D4 and D3 will control the address of the low bank, and also whether the memory mapped register page is enabled at 4000 to 7FFFh.

D4 D3
0 0 Low bank ROM = 0000 to 3FFFh, register page off
0 1 Low bank ROM = 4000 to 7FFFh, register page off
1 0 Low bank ROM = 8000 to BFFFh, register page off
1 1 Low bank ROM = 0000 to 3FFFh, register page on


D2 to D0 will determine which of the lower eight pages of the cartridge ROM appear at the low bank address. The default condition will be to select page 0.

The logical (as seen by the CPU) to physical (as appears on the upper five cartridge address lines) page translation scheme will thus be:

Low bank: Logical page (RMR2) Physical page
0-7 0-7


High Bank: Logical page (DFxxh) Physical page
0-127 (not disc page) 1
0 or 7 (disc page) 3
128-255 0-31


This means that any of the first eight pages of cartridge ROM can be paged in to either 0000, 4000, or 8000h, while any of the 32 cartridge pages can simultaneously appear at C000h.

The two ROM disable bits in the existing mode and ROM enable register will disable the ROM as before, wherever it is mapped, as will the ROMDIS signal from the expansion bus.

The "write through" mechanism, whereby writes to an area which is currently mapped as ROM actually write to the underlying RAM, will still function, wherever the ROM is mapped. However, the write through mechanism cannot be used to access the register page. Write through also does not operate to the RAM from the register page.

2.9 Analogue paddle ports

The ASIC will include the logic for an octal A/D converter, in conjunction with an external R-2R network, comparator and analogue multiplexer. Eight analogue input channels are thus available on the PCB, of which only four have connectors. This allows support for four paddles or two joysticks, with capacity for twice this many without redesigning the ASIC. The A/D is 6 bits wide, to give sufficient resolution after calibrating joysticks. It will appear to the software as a bank of eight, 6 bit, read-only registers from 6808h to 680Fh, known as ADC0-7. They will be updated approximately 200 times per second. The A/D inputs have an input range of 0V (data = 00) to 2.5V (data = 3Fh), and an input impedance of 1k to ground.

2.10 PAL subcarrier locking

The main oscillator for the ASIC will be 40MHz. A divide by 9 output at 4.444MHz is provided with a 5:4 mark/space ratio. It will be possible to change the main crystal to 9 x 4.33619MHz = 39.902571 MHz, slowing the whole system by 0.25%. This may or may not upset the disk drives, but even if this is the case, a diskless unit could provide PAL subcarrier frequency locked to the master oscillator, thus improving the picture quality.

2.11 Locking of enhanced features

The ASIC will contain a locking mechanism, whereby the enhanced features will not be available until the software has performed an obscure sequence of I/O instructions to the ASIC. This will prevent any existing software from having nasty accidents on the new hardware.

When the lock is "locked", the secondary ROM mapping register does not exist (see Section 2.8). It is therefore impossible to select (or deselect) the memory mapped register page.

2.12 Eight bit printer support

The ASIC can provide support for eight bit printers. If a link on the PCB is made, the most significant printer port bit will be controlled by bit 3 in register 12 of the 6845, i.e. bit 11 of the start address register. If the link is not made, the most significant printer port bit will always be low.

2.13 Floppy disc data separator

Because of timescale pressures, the data separator design in the ASIC will not be improved. Instead all models with disk drives will use an external SED9420 data seperator.

2.14 Power requirements

The Arnold V range is a 5V only design. Power requirements are:

Amstrad 464 Plus: MIN MAX UNIT
Main PCB 700 1300 mA
Cassette unit TBD TBD mA
Total consumption TBD TBD mA


Amstrad 6128 Plus: MIN MAX UNIT
Main PCB 700 1300 mA
Disk Drive Unit TBD 1100 mA
Total consumption TBD 2400 mA

3 SOFTWARE SPECIFICATION

The computers will be shipped with a cartridge fitted in the cartridge slot, as follows. Disk based software will be supplied with the 6128 Plus by Amstrad. There will be no welcome tape or disk.

3.1 6128

1M ROM cartridge (i.e. 128k x 8) Combined firmware, BASIC and Disk ROM, incorporating free game:

Page 0: Firmware
Page 1: BASIC
Page 2: Game
Page 3: Disk
Pages 4-6: Game
Page 7: BASIC


One 3" disk with CP/M Plus and utilities only.

3.2 464

1M ROM cartridge as for 6128.

4 MECHANICAL SPECIFICATION

Both models in the new CPC range will share a common plastic cabinet. This will be a two-piece design, i.e. upper and lower cabinet halves. The name Amstrad will be moulded in to the top cabinet. The different variants will be handled by breakout sections or tool inserts as necessary. The 464 version will have the model name "464 Plus" moulded into the cassette door, and the "6128" version will have the model name "6128 Plus" moulded into the upper casework above the disk drive, in the area of plastic which does not exist for the 464 version. The monitors will have international symbols for brightness, contrast, volume and vertical hold. Apart from these items, there will be no moulded lettering, and moving cores must be kept to a minimum. The casework will provide both aesthetic and structural functions. Other moulded parts will be needed for the ROM cartridge, cartridge slot, cassette door, and the power switch. These should be in the same material and the same colour as the main casework mouldings.

Finish: Off tool, textured
Colour: TBD
Material: TBD, non toxic.


The power switch will be connected to a "bolt" which engages in the side of the ROM cartridge when the power is on, so that the cartridge cannot be inserted or withdrawn while power is applied to the machine.

The main PCB, disk drive (6128) and cassette mechanism (464) will be mounted to the lower cabinet. Ideally, the keyboard should be similarly mounted on the lower cabinet, to improve serviceability, as should as many minor components as possible. A slimmer cassette mechanism must be used, to keep the height of the computer low. The cassette mechanism electronics will be mounted below the cassette deck, as with the old version.

5 DISPLAY DEVICES

With the CPC range, the display device, i.e. Monitor, Modulator/power supply, or peritel adaptor also supplies power to the computer. In view of the fact that RFI prevention will be important in Europe after 1992, all display devices should be to Class 1 construction, i.e. earthed, so that it is easier to prevent the computer radiating, and should themselves be designed to meet the RFI standard EN55022 (CISPR 22). The monitors should operate off both 220V and 240V supplies without modification.

The relevant safety standard for this product is BS415 (IEC65).

5.1 Monitors

The new CPC range will always be sold with a monitor.

The existing GTM65 and CTM640 monitors wil be restyled in the same colour as the main cabinet, except that the monitor rear cabinet material must be to BS415 Clause 20.2

The monochrome monitor should be changed to a 12" paper white tube, similar to that used on the PCW9512. The input will be the same as the earlier versions, i.e. impedance 470 ohms to 0V, analogue voltage input which is linear between 0.8V (Black) and 1.75V (Peak white). However, the signal from Arnold V will not include syncronising pulses.

The input curcuit of the colour monitor will need to handle a sixteen level input on each of RGB. The new monitor must present an input impedance of 100 ohms to 0V, and accept an analogue current of 0-10mA for each gun. The levels shall be defined such that 0mA is black and 10mA is full on. The response must be linear between these limits.

The monitors will also incorporate stereo speakers, amplifiers, and a volume control. The 12V D.C. output will not be required.

5.2 Modulator/Power Supply units

The existing MP2 can be used with the new CPC range. However, it would be better to produce a new version following the RFI guidelines at the start of this section, and preferably including a sound modulator.

The input circuit of the Peritel adaptor will probably need to be redesigned to handle the new analogue video signals. It should also have the sound channels added.

6 NATIONAL VARIANTS

The existing national variants of the ROM (i.e. UK, France, Spain) will continue to be supported, but no others will be added. Steps should be taken to limit the amount of national variation to that which really is necessary. There should be no need to make any changes for approvals reasons, except to power supply input voltages and mains connectors.

There will be different versions of the keyboard, instruction book, and disk, as well as the ROM cartridge. It is thus possible to change between, variants without dismantling the computer.

7 PACKING LIST

The following items should be included in the computer carton: The following should be included in the monitor carton:

APPENDIX I

New Register Map

The new register page, from 4000h to 7FFFh appears as follows:

ADDRSIZEPORTYPEMNEMUSE
4000h100HNR/WSprite 0 image data
4100h100hNR/WSprite 1 image data
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4F00h100hNR/WSprite 15 image data
5000h(unused)
6000h2NR/WX0Sprite 0 X position
6002h2NR/WY0Sprite 0 Y position
6004h1YWM0Sprite 0 magnification
6005h3(unused)
6008h2NR/WX1Sprite 1 X position
600Ah2NR/WY1Sprite 1 Y position
600Ch1YWM1Sprite 1 magnification
600Dh3(unused)
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6078h2NR/WX15Sprite 15 X position
607Ah2NR/WY15Sprite 15 Y position
607Ch1NWM15Sprite 15 magnification
607Dh3(unused)
6080h(unused)
6400h2NR/WColour palette, pen 0
6402h2NR/WColour palette, pen 1
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641Eh2NR/WColour palette, pen 15
6420h2NR/WColour palette, border
6422h2NR/WColour palette, sprite colour 1
6424h2NR/WColour palette, sprite colour 2
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643Eh2NR/WColour palette, sprite colour 15
6440h(unused)
6800h1YWPRIProgrammable raster interrupt scan line
6801h1YWSPLTScreen split scan line
6802h2NWSSAScreen split secondary start address
6804h1YWSSCRSoft scroll control register
6805h1NWIVRInterrupt Vector
6806h(unused)
6808h1RADC0Analogue input channel 0
6809h1RADC1Analogue input channel 1
680Ah1RADC2Analogue input channel 2
680Bh1RADC3Analogue input channel 3
680Ch1RADC4Analogue input channel 4
680Dh1RADC5Analogue input channel 5
680Eh1RADC6Analogue input channel 6
680Fh1RADC7Analogue input channel 7
6810h(unused)
6C00h2NWSAR0"DMA" channel 0 address pointer
6C02h1NWPPR0"DMA" channel 0 pause prescaler
6C03h1(unused)
6C04h2NWSAR1"DMA" channel 1 address pointer
6C06h1NWPPR1"DMA" channel 1 pause prescaler
6C07h1(unused)
6C08h2NWSAR2"DMA" channel 2 address pointer
6C0Ah1NWPPR2"DMA" channel 2 pause prescaler
6C0Bh4(unused)
6C0Fh1YR/WDCSR"DMA" control/status register


Registers in I/O space are generally identical to earlier CPC464/6128 versions, except as follows:

ADDRDATAPORTYPEMNEMUSE
7Fxxh00xxxxxxNWPalette pointer register
7Fxxh01xxxxxxNWPalette memory
7Fxxh100xxxxxYWMRERMode and ROM enable register
7Fxxh101xxxxxYWRMR2Secondary ROM mapping register
7Fxxh11xxxxxxYWMemory mapping register (RAM)
DFxxhxxxxxxxxYWExpansion/Cartridge ROM select


Note that RMR2 can only be accessed when the new feature lock (Section 2.11 above) has been "opened". Otherwise, MRER exists in its place.

POR column indicates whether a register has power on reset. A "N" indicates that the contents of a register will be undefined at power on.

APPENDIX II

Connector pinouts

From front of left hand side rearwards, then along the rear panel towards the right, the connectors will be:

SOUND:3.5mm stereo jack
1 (Shield)GND
2 (Tip)L Sound
3 (Ring)R Sound




JOYSTICK 1:9 way male D. Joystick 2 can be daisy chained
1Up6Fire 2
2Down7Fire 1
3Left8Common
4Right9Common (joystick 2)
5N.C.




JOYSTICK 2:9 way male D.
1Up6Fire 2
2Down7Fire 1
3Left8Common
4Right9N.C.
5N.C.




ANALOGUE:15 way female D
1GND (Pot common)9GND (Pot common)
2Fire 110Fire 1
3X111X2
4COM1 (switches)12COM2 (switches)
5+5V13Y2
6Y114Fire 2
7Fire 215GND (Pot common)
8GND (Pot common)


AUX:6 pin RJ-11 type
1+5V
2Common
3LPEN
4Fire 2
5Fire 1
6GND




PRINTER:25 way female D
1*Strobe14
2D015
3D116+5V
4D217GND
5D318GND
6D419GND
7D520GND
8D621GND
9D722GND
1023GND
11BUSY24GND
1225GND
13




EXPANSION:50 way Delta range.
1Sound2GND
3A154A14
5A136A12
7A118A10
9A910A8
11A712A6
13A514A4
15A316A2
17A118A0
19D720D6
21D522D4
23D324D2
25D126D0
27VCC28*MREQ
29*M130*RFSH
31*IORQ32*RD
33*WR34*HALT
35*INT36*NMI
37*BUSRQ38*BUSAK
39READY40*BRST
41*RSET42*ROMEN
43ROMDIS44*RAMRD
45RAMDIS46CURSOR
47LPEN48*EXP
49GND50CLK4




5 V DC:6mm power
Centre+5V
OuterGND




MONITOR:8 way DIN type A (45326)
1*Sync
2Green
3Lum
4Red
5Blue
6L Sound
7R Sound
8GND




SECOND DRIVE:36 way Delta range (6128 only)
1N.C. (Disk change)2GND
34GND
56GND
7Index8GND
9N.C. (Drive 0 select)10GND
11Drive 1 Select12GND
1314GND
15Motor On16GND
17Direction Select18GND
19Step20GND
21Write Data22GND
23Write Gate24GND
25Track 026GND
27Write Protect28GND
29Read Data30GND
31Side 1 Select32GND
33Ready34GND
35N.C.36GND


The internal connectors will be:



TAPE PORT:8 way 0.1" pitch connector (464 only)
1+5V
2GND
3+5V
4Write Data
5Read Data
6+5V
7Sound
8*Motor on




DISK POWER:4 x 0.1" pitch high current PCB header (6128 only)
1+5V
2GND
3GND
4N.C.




INTERNAL DRIVE:26 way 0.1" pitch ribbon cable connector (6128 only)
1GND2Index
3GND4Drive 0 Select
5GND6N.C. (Drive 1 Select)
7GND8Motor On
9GND10Direction Select
11GND12Step
13GND14Write Data
15GND16Write Gate
17GND18Track 0
19GND20Write Protect
21GND22Read Data
23GND24Side 1 Select
25GND26Ready




KEYBOARD:2 pcs 10 way 0.1" pitch socket for flexible PCB
1N.C.1Y1
2X12Y2
3X23Y3
4X34Y4
5X45Y5
6X56Y6
7X67Y7
8X78Y8
9X89Y9
10N.C.10Y10




POWER SWITCH:2 pin 0.1" pitch header
1Input from PSU
2+5V to Computer




POWER ON LED:2 pin 0.1" pitch header
1LED Anode
2GND




ROM CARTRIDGE:2 pcs 2 x 9 way 2.5mm pitch sockets.
1aA102aA21b+5V2b+5V
3a*CE4aA13bCLK4bCA18
5aD76aA05bCA166bCA17
7aD68aD07bCA158bCA14
9aD510aD19bA1210bA13
11aD412aD211bA712bA8
13aD314aSIN13bA914bA9
15aCCLR16aGND15bA516bA11
17aGND18aGND17bA418bA3


This document was originally transcribed by Rob Scott and Paul Fairman. It was converted into HTML by Kevin Thacker.