Goupil G2 repair

[herebedragons]

Bonjour! Please forgive me for messaging in English. I have recently acquired a Goupil G2 - a very rare machine in the UK - and would love to get it running.

The system has 6 cards:

CPU + CRT
Carte Alphanumeric 24x80
Floppy controller Version B
Carte Modem
Keyboard / eprom (with just the two monitor ROMs)
64K memory cart

Currently I get no video output from either the CRT card or the 80 column card. However, a logic analyser suggests the CPU is running and can access the ROMs, and the data being read off the ROMs looks okay.

I would like to reduce the number of variables here. Will the machine boot to a monitor prompt if I only have the CPU card and the eprom card? Does the keyboard need to be plugged in?

Many thanks in advance!
Tony

[fneck]

Even in France, not many people own a Goupil G2. It's a beautiful machine, I hope someone can answer your questions.

[gotcha]

I don't have access to a working G2, but I know that it should 'boot' on its so called 'Monitor' (its BIOS).
You should have a '+' prompt at boot time. This is similar to the Goupil G3.
The monitor provides some low-level debug functionalities like reading/writing the memory.

When you remove some of the cards, you need to make sure you don't remove a card that has mandatory Monitor EPROMs.

To illustrate this, on early 6809 G3 versions for instance, the monitor ROMs were split across 2 cards (CPU and extension). If you only keep the CPU and Video card when debugging, the G3 won't boot correctly due to the missing EPROM.

Regarding the keyboard, I don't this it is mandatory to get the Monitor '+' prompt.

I would assumle you can remove these cards:

• Floppy controller Version B

• Carte Modem

Note that a technical manual was already scanned for the G2. You can certainly gather some information from this document.
You can check here: http://retronik.fr/Info/SMT-GOUPIL/Goup ... entations/
It's nevertheless in french.

[leduigou]

Hi,

You can have a look here at the documentation :
https://www.myithilien.com/crbst_12.html
I have scanned a large set of the manual. The eprom listing is included.

Good luck

[herebedragons]

Thank you for your help everyone! The technical manual tells me what the base system should be:

4 connecteurs sont utilisés en version de base pour les cartes
suivantes :
- Carte CPU
- Carte E/S
- Carte Mémoire
- Carte Modem

(chapter 2, p1)

The modem surprised me - but looking at it closer, it's also the cassette / K7 interface, so it's not unreasonable. Let me start with that and see how I get on.

[gotcha]

I think that 'base version' means the minimal version for users.
In other words, the cheapest G2 users could buy at that time.

I don't think it means that all these cards are mandatory to boot the G2.
In particular, I would be very surprised to have the modem card required.

Note that I also have a G2 to repair, but I'm 'unfortunately' still busy with G3 related stuff for now.