Real World card breadboard. Most cards had a 8255 as basic logic.
Real World card breadboard. Most cards had a 8255 as basic logic.
The DCE bus on the DAI computer is what makes it more than an standard home computer. The bus offers a structured way to connect peripherials to the computer. Internally the DCE bus is just a 8255 chip. This device offers two 8-bit and two 4-bit I/O ports. Two modes of operation are possible:
In basic mode only one device can be connected. The ports can be used any way the designer wishes. This mode is ideal for simple (E)PROM programmers.
In DCE mode the port usage is predefined.
Most cards used a 8255 chip for internal address decoding. So to use the DCE-bus you had to initialise an 8255, and for most cards on the bus, another 8255!
Source: DAInamic 0/1 (1980) and an Indata DAI folder.
STORAGE OPTIONS
The DAI knew several file storage systems other than audio cassette. Here a list with an indication of access times:
| Storage type | storage time 10kByte | command form |
|---|---|---|
| Cassette | ~160s | SAVE"filename" |
| MDCR | ~43s | CALLM#F000:REM com. |
| KEN DOS | <3s | CALLM#F000:REM com. |
| DAI Floppy | ~13s | POKE :?"com.": POKE |
| VC-1541 | ~27s | real BASIC-commands |
| DAI-star | ? | real BASIC-commands |
The DAI-star wasn't just a floppy disk system, but a complete CP/M system, with the extra functionality to act as a DAI file server.
Source: DAInamic 26 & 30 (1985)
This is the documentation with the DAI:
Back to main DAI page
Updated: 2000-11-19