MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: DEC Rainbow 100

> Hi,
>
> i am one of the maintainers of the Rainbow driver. Let me answer some questions i saw
> previously.
>
> A Rainbow-100-A is not emulated because nobody to date dumped the ROMs (and the ones
> online are fake).
>
> TeleDisk needs 100 % real iron and a non-USB diskette controller As far as i know, it
> is useless in Dosbox.
>
> The Rainbow diskette format is interleaved and has nothing in common with standard
> PCs, so you will need customized tools to manipulate them.
> PowerISO and all modern PC utilites aren't capable (this includes PUTR which claims
> to handle RX50 disks, but destroys Rainbow-100 boot sectors).
>
> Attached is a .NET executable to skew/unskew 400 K DEC-DOS image files (for use with
> DiskExplorer 1.69E...see linked PDF). A tested version of Cpmtools for Windows is
> also provided.
>
> Existing 400 K image files (exactly 409.600 bytes; type *.IMG) - and *.TD0 files can
> be mounted directly in emulation (in MAME/MESS).
>
> A few Rainbow-100 archives are still online (Latrobe, Goodnight, Decus, mirrors of
> ftp.update.uu.se).
>
> Current Rainbow-100 B emulation in MESS has support for
>
> - two RX-50 disk drives (A and B)
> - one PC compatible 5.25 inch 360 K drive (Slot 3) ...with special drivers
> - one PC compatible 3.5 inch 720 K drive (Slot 4) ...with special driver (the way to
> go for seamless data exchange with PC)
> - one single DEC RDX hard disk (up to 8 heads and 1024 cylinders and multiple
> partition types).
> - up to four independent Corvus hard drives (CP/M 1 only, no drivers for DOS or other
> OS seem to have survived)
> - all known variants of the ClikClok (a real time clock sold by Suitable Solutions)
> - 7220 Color Graphics (marked as imperfect; many games run but colors are too dark;
> AutoCad 2 omits lines / patterns)
> - different types of monitors (including homebrew dual monitor)
>
> Read more in my introductory PDF (with instructions on how to create suitable hard
> disks with Chdman)
> First steps with the Rainbow-100
>
> Serial and printer were fixed around 0.196 (not reflected in document above).
>
> Another source for info are notes in the Rainbow driver

There you are. I have been trying to contact you because I found out from reading the What's New in MAME files that you are the developer for Rainbow 100 emulation. Thank you for chiming in. You have given me a lot of great information and software here. I just need to find the time to go through it all.

Thanks again.