This page was last updated on 04/12/2003.

What's New

The Phase II release used a poor H19 character generator. I fixed this and the new terminal emulation looks more like the H19 should. I also re-drew the H19 logo to match the "rainbow" that Heathkit used.

Current Release

The entire Phase II version of the Virtual H8 project is available for download. This file contains the source code for the Virtual H8, code for three programs to help obtain H8 ROM contents and HDOS diskette content, executables for the Virtual H8 and documentation. The file is 1.2 MB and is ZIP compressed. UPDATED: 04/12/2003 to improve the H19 font and logo.

The documentation is also available on-line via this link. (Note: To save bandwidth, the on-line documentation uses reduced-sized images for the figures. The figures in the download are actual-sized.) UPDATED: 04/12/2003, but only to include revised screen-shot images and to bring the copyright up to date.

Since I do not yet have permission to distribute the PAM-37 and H-17 ROM memory dump files needed by the simulator, the current release does not include actual memory dumps for the ROMs. You can either transcribe the machine code from ROM listings, if you happen to own them, or compile and run the included memory dump programs on a working, Z-80-based H8. (The included files named PAM37.ROM and H17.ROM contain a test program which will display the keycode of the button you press and a halt instruction, respectively.)

WARNING!

This is not a commercial, shrink-wrapped, distribution: you're pretty much on your own to figure things out. The documentation is not the best, but it should help. If you need better, you probably want to not bother taking the download at this time. What you will get is the complete source code for the virtual h8 project components, in Microsoft Visual C++ with moderate commentary content, the compiled executables for all the Virtual H-8 Project applications, the wave file, dummy content for the PROMs and some programs which can be compiled and run on a real H8 to create actual PROM content files and HDOS diskette images.

• These programs have only been tested on Windows NT version 4.0, with a little spot-checking on Windows 2000 Professional -- they are known not to work under Windows 95 or 98 and are suspected not to work on Windows ME, though that hasn't yet been confirmed. Still testing XP, but it appears to work.
• System requirements include a Pentium II or better processor (333 MHz or higher recommended) with at least 96 MB of RAM, a display capable of at least 800x600x256 resolution and a sound card.
• You'll need Microsoft Visual C++ version 5.0 or 6.0 to compile the projects.

License and Copyright Information

I thought about doing some take-off on the Gnu Public License. But let's be real: this code isn't a product that's ever going to make me or anybody else rich. So let's just say that I mean it when I say "Copyright" -- I wrote the damn thing. I get the credit. I keep control of the code. You get to use it if you want. Just play nice: if you mess with the code, continue to acknowledge the author.

Oh yeah, one more thing: If it doesn't work, I'm sorry. But you were warned -- it's an early release of author-maintained software. But if you do try it and have a problem, feel free to contact me and report it. I'll try to work out an edit to the code as quickly as possible and incorperate the fix in the next build. The more eyes that look at this stuff, the sooner it will work right.