Software

There is a surprising amount of software available on the internet. Most of it is either in the form of poorly legible scans of printouts, or in the form of binaries without any source code or documentation. Creating a understandable and documented source code is often the first step in software restoration.

for the P1 computer

Popmon is a monitor replacement for Central Data machines.

The Central Data Disk Operating System is a somewhat complete operating system for the Central Data machine. It lacks utilities (such as for copying files or formatting diskettes), contains a bug or two and can use some usability improvements. Therefore it is better to use my improved version: P1 DOS.

I have been working on reverse-engineering the source code for TCT Basic and Central Data’s 12K Basic, but decided to focus my efforts in getting an improved version of Central Data DOS working, which would make working with Basic and other programming languages and tools a lot easier.

for the TWIN

Software for the Signetics TWIN can only be found on disk images. There are a number of sources for these. I collected them on the Disk Images page.

for the Instructor

The Signetics Instructor is designed for training purposes. Its users are supposed to create and enter short programs themselves, using the hex keyboard. For demonstration purposes a small number of games and utilities were supplied on cassette tape. The Signetics Instructor 50 Desktop Computer Software Applications Manual describes these utilities. Most of these programs can be found in the Games pack at Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central.

The built-in monitor program for the Instructor is called USE. Its binary is contain in the Gmes pack linked above and an annotated listing is supplied in Book 2: User manual. The USE monitor is an ingenious piece of engineering, closely cooperating with the hardware to provide breakpoints, single stepping and other debugging functions. I wrote a dedicated page on Debugging, comparing the Instructor to the P1 and TWIN.

for the VC4000

Software for this game console was distributed in the form of plug-in cartridges. I have not looked closely at this system yet, but Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central is a great starting point.

Lots of software, but documentation is often missing:

Emerson Arcadia 2001 Central: the most complete repository on the 2650.

Microbee software preservation project: mostly on Australian computers, but still a good basis for porting to different machines.

Microbyte Software for the 2650.