{"id":20599,"date":"2023-04-13T20:19:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T18:19:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mo5.fr\/premier-demarrage-du-micral-n-copy\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T22:24:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T20:24:18","slug":"verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mo5.com\/en\/verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n\/","title":{"rendered":"Verification of proper operation and first start of the Micral N"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Philippe Dubois, President. Translation by S\u00e9bastien Marty.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In this eighth article, we are going to get a little more into the heart of the matter. After having studied, reverse-engineered the Micral N's boards and even replaced some components, we are finally about to restart our unit for the first time after almost 50 years!<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, the study and reverse-engineering of the boards are going well with the help of Jean-Fran\u00e7ois, Sylvain and Arthur. We took out all the boards from our Micral N one by one over the past few weeks to carefully photograph and even scan them in high definition, and began to draw the circuits to document them and better understand how they work. All our work will soon be listed on a dedicated site<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20356\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MICRAL-N_Carte-processeur-Photo-Annotee.png\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20356\" class=\"wp-image-20356 size-large\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MICRAL-N_Carte-processeur-Photo-Annotee-1024x768.png\" alt=\"Analysis example of the CPU board from our Micral N\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MICRAL-N_Carte-processeur-Photo-Annotee-1024x768.png 1024w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MICRAL-N_Carte-processeur-Photo-Annotee-16x12.png 16w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MICRAL-N_Carte-processeur-Photo-Annotee-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MICRAL-N_Carte-processeur-Photo-Annotee-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MICRAL-N_Carte-processeur-Photo-Annotee-1536x1152.png 1536w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MICRAL-N_Carte-processeur-Photo-Annotee-2048x1536.png 2048w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/MICRAL-N_Carte-processeur-Photo-Annotee-958x719.png 958w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20356\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Analysis example of the CPU board from our Micral N<\/p><\/div>\n<p>We also took the opportunity of our progress on the restoration of our unit to produce a live broadcast on the MO5 association's Twitch channel with our friend <a href=\"https:\/\/fr.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bruce_Benamran\">E-Think<\/a> as a guest star, dedicated to the history of R2E and of the Micral N! The video is now available on our Youtube channel (french only) : <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BE7X611r_Uk&amp;t=5702s&amp;ab_channel=MO5AssoRetro\">Live on the history of Micral N<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Replacing faulty RAM chips<\/h2>\n<div>Thanks to the device specially created by Jean-Fran\u00e7ois to dump our Micral N's ROMs and test its very old - and therefore very specific - RAM chips, we were able to determine that out of the few dozen chips contained in our machine, only one was defective! This contrasts dramatically with the poor quality of more modern RAM chips used in 8-bit microcomputers in the 80s.<\/div>\n<div class=\"message-2CShn3 cozyMessage-1DWF9U wrapper-30-Nkg cozy-VmLDNB zalgo-26OfGz\" role=\"article\" data-list-item-id=\"chat-messages___chat-messages-946695312360230932-1089245413934108732\" aria-labelledby=\"message-username-1089245309651140608 uid_1 message-content-1089245413934108732 uid_2 message-timestamp-1089245413934108732\">\n<div class=\"contents-2MsGLg\">\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_20358\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210405_155640.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-1\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20358\" class=\"wp-image-20358 size-large\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210405_155640-1024x639.jpg\" alt=\"The RAM chips in our Micral N unit were all tested one by one!\" width=\"680\" height=\"424\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210405_155640-1024x639.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210405_155640-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210405_155640-768x479.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210405_155640-1536x958.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210405_155640-958x598.jpg 958w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210405_155640.jpg 1566w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20358\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The RAM chips in our Micral N unit were all tested one by one!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Fortunately, we were able to find RAM chips of the same series on a famous auction site in the United States, which of course were tested on arrival. One of them will therefore replace the defective chip in our Micral N. As a reminder, these are SRAM chips (static random access memory) of 1024 bits each, so that's only 128 bytes in total!<\/p>\n<p>You can see what this historical SRAM chip from 1972 looks like by following <a href=\"https:\/\/calisphere.org\/item\/ark:\/13030\/kt7k4022nm\/\">this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20362\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210601_165046.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-2\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20362\" class=\"wp-image-20362 size-large\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210601_165046-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"The four 2102 series RAM chips received from the USA are all in working order!\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210601_165046-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210601_165046-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210601_165046-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210601_165046-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210601_165046-958x719.jpg 958w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210601_165046.jpg 1920w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20362\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The four 2102 series RAM chips received from the USA are all in working order!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>This is good news indeed: the RAM chips we received are all working perfectly, even nearly 50 years after they were made, so we can now confidently move forward to the next steps of the restoration process.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Work session at Viveris and starting up the Micral N<\/h2>\n<p>We therefore organized another working session with our team of volunteers at our partner Viveris which, remember, provides the association with a fantastic electronic laboratory at their premises in Rungis near Paris. We were still in the middle of COVID, hence the mandatory mask!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20364\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_144153.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-3\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20364\" class=\"wp-image-20364 size-large\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_144153-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"L'\u00e9quipe se r\u00e9unit une nouvelle fois chez Viveris pour continuer d'analyser les cartes \u00e9lectroniques de notre Micral N\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_144153-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_144153-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_144153-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_144153-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_144153-958x719.jpg 958w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_144153.jpg 1920w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20364\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The team met again at Viveris to continue analyzing the electronic boards of our Micral N<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Most of the team will be able to continue studying and testing the various electronic boards of our Micral N, with the possibility, if we don't detect any problem, to try and restart our machine for the first time! All the members present are very motivated, the atmosphere is excellent. We were joined for a few moments by a Viveris manager, curious to witness our work on the machine.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20368\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_170228-1.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-4\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20368\" class=\"wp-image-20368 size-large\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_170228-1-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Power supply test and operation check of one of the electronic boards of our Micral N\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_170228-1-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_170228-1-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_170228-1-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_170228-1-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_170228-1-958x719.jpg 958w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_170228-1.jpg 1920w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20368\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Power supply test and operation check of one of the electronic boards of our Micral N<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The main electronic boards critical to the operation of the machine, at least according to our current state of knowledge, will all be checked, powered and tested one by one in order to ensure that once installed inside the frame and switched on all together, no unfortunate event occurs. Jean-Fran\u00e7ois and Arthur assembled combs of the right size so as to be able to plug in each board.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20371\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/P1030489.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-5\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20371\" class=\"wp-image-20371 size-large\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/P1030489-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Jean-Fran\u00e7ois scans the chips of the Micral N with a thermal camera to check if they behave well once powered\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/P1030489-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/P1030489-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/P1030489-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/P1030489-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/P1030489-958x719.jpg 958w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/P1030489.jpg 1920w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20371\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jean-Fran\u00e7ois scans the chips of the Micral N with a thermal camera to check if they behave well once powered<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>At the end of this project, the first good news awaits us: there doesn't seem to be any faulty board, and no component has apparently suffered from being powered up. We can put all our boards back in the Micral N's frame and consider what's next.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Herv\u00e9 and Arthur are also busy adapting a carrying case that Arthur brought, which will be large enough to safely contain our Micral N and all its accessories (plugs, cables, power supplies, experimentation boards, etc.).<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20366\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_160653.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-6\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20366\" class=\"wp-image-20366 size-large\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_160653-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Herv\u00e9 and Arthur cut the foam from a large professional carrying case to fit the shape of our Micral N\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_160653-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_160653-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_160653-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_160653-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_160653-958x719.jpg 958w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_160653.jpg 1920w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20366\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Herv\u00e9 and Arthur cut the foam from a large professional carrying case to fit the shape of our Micral N<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We also take the opportunity to build the power cables needed to power the machine directly. It has two connectors, one on either side supplying power to half of the backplane, in order to better distribute the electrical load. This type of connector is very old and rather difficult to find these days. Luckily, we were able to find a few on the Mouser Electronics online store.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20374\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210605_174556.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-7\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20374\" class=\"wp-image-20374 size-large\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210605_174556-1024x767.jpg\" alt=\"The power connectors of our Micral N are quite unusual\" width=\"680\" height=\"509\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210605_174556-1024x767.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210605_174556-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210605_174556-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210605_174556-1536x1151.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210605_174556-958x718.jpg 958w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20210605_174556.jpg 1920w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20374\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The power connectors of our Micral N are quite unusual<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Restarting our Micral N!<\/h2>\n<p>Here we are finally! Using the laboratory power supplies available at Viveris, precisely adjusted to the operating voltages of the machine, and after we had checked one last time each electronic board individually, we decided to connect our Micral N to the mains in order to check its behavior. And there a second excellent news awaited us!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20365\" style=\"width: 690px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-8\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-20365\" class=\"wp-image-20365 size-large\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"Eureka! Our Micral N powers up!\" width=\"680\" height=\"510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136-16x12.jpg 16w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136-958x719.jpg 958w, https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136.jpg 1920w\"  sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-20365\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eureka! Our Micral N powers up!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Our Micral N powers up! We are all very happy, and Sylvain is eager to confirm at last what we understood so far about the operation of this machine and the code contained in its read-only memories (ROMs). With a few manipulations, we interrupt the start-up cycle of the machine to land in its monitor, the contents of which (2 KB) was saved previously as explained in this article : <a href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/en\/reading-and-saving-micral-n-roms\/\">https:\/\/mo5.com\/en\/reading-and-saving-micral-n-roms\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Since we are now relieved about the electrical start-up of our Micral N, we will be able to study very precisely how to make it run programs and start programming it! But all this will be discussed in a future article.<\/p>\n<p>Until then, please don't forget to take part in the campaign to support our work!\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/micral.mo5.com\">https:\/\/micral.mo5.com<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Philippe Dubois, President. Translation by S\u00e9bastien Marty. In this eighth article, we are going to get a little more into the heart of the matter. After having studied, reverse-engineered the Micral N&#8217;s boards and even replaced some components, we are finally about to restart our unit for the first time after almost 50 years! Indeed, the study and reverse-engineering of the boards are going well with the help of Jean-Fran\u00e7ois, Sylvain and Arthur. We took out all the boards from our Micral N one by one over the past few weeks to carefully photograph and even scan them in high definition, and began to draw the circuits to document them and better understand how they work. All our work will soon be listed on a dedicated site We also took the opportunity of our progress on the restoration of our unit to produce a live broadcast on the MO5 association&#8217;s Twitch channel with our friend E-Penser as a guest star, dedicated to the history of R2E and of the Micral N! The video is now available on our Youtube channel (french only) : Live sur l&#8217;histoire du Micral N. &nbsp; Replacing faulty RAM chips Thanks to the device specially created by Jean-Fran\u00e7ois to dump our Micral N&#8217;s ROMs and test its very old \u2013 and therefore very specific \u2013 RAM chips, we were able to determine that out of the few dozen chips contained in our machine, only one was defective ! This contrasts dramatically with the poor quality of more modern RAM chips used in 8-bit microcomputers in the 80s. Fortunately, we were able to find RAM chips of the same series on a famous auction site in the United States, which of course were tested on arrival. One of them will therefore replace the defective chip in our Micral N. As a reminder, these are SRAM chips (static random access memory) of 1024 bits each, so that&#8217;s only 128 bytes in total! You can see what this historical SRAM chip from 1972 looks like by following this link. This is good news indeed: the RAM chips we received are all working perfectly, even nearly 50 years after they were made, so we can now confidently move forward to the next steps of the restoration process. &nbsp; Work session at Viveris and starting up the Micral N We therefore organized another working session with our team of volunteers at our partner Viveris which, remember, provides the association with a fantastic electronic laboratory at their premises in Rungis near Paris. We were still in the middle of COVID, hence the mandatory mask! &nbsp; Most of the team will be able to continue studying and testing the various electronic boards of our Micral N, with the possibility, if we don&#8217;t detect any problem, to try and restart our machine for the first time! All the members present are very motivated, the atmosphere is excellent. We were joined for a few moments by a Viveris manager, curious to witness our work on the machine. &nbsp; The main electronic boards critical to the operation of the machine, at least according to our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1485,973],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-micral","category-non-classe-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Verification of proper operation and first start of the Micral N - MO5.COM<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/en\/verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Verification of proper operation and first start of the Micral N - MO5.COM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Philippe Dubois, President. Translation by S\u00e9bastien Marty. In this eighth article, we are going to get a little more into the heart of the matter. After having studied, reverse-engineered the Micral N&#8217;s boards and even replaced some components, we are finally about to restart our unit for the first time after almost 50 years! Indeed, the study and reverse-engineering of the boards are going well with the help of Jean-Fran\u00e7ois, Sylvain and Arthur. We took out all the boards from our Micral N one by one over the past few weeks to carefully photograph and even scan them in high definition, and began to draw the circuits to document them and better understand how they work. All our work will soon be listed on a dedicated site We also took the opportunity of our progress on the restoration of our unit to produce a live broadcast on the MO5 association&#8217;s Twitch channel with our friend E-Penser as a guest star, dedicated to the history of R2E and of the Micral N! The video is now available on our Youtube channel (french only) : Live sur l&#8217;histoire du Micral N. &nbsp; Replacing faulty RAM chips Thanks to the device specially created by Jean-Fran\u00e7ois to dump our Micral N&#8217;s ROMs and test its very old \u2013 and therefore very specific \u2013 RAM chips, we were able to determine that out of the few dozen chips contained in our machine, only one was defective ! This contrasts dramatically with the poor quality of more modern RAM chips used in 8-bit microcomputers in the 80s. Fortunately, we were able to find RAM chips of the same series on a famous auction site in the United States, which of course were tested on arrival. One of them will therefore replace the defective chip in our Micral N. As a reminder, these are SRAM chips (static random access memory) of 1024 bits each, so that&#8217;s only 128 bytes in total! You can see what this historical SRAM chip from 1972 looks like by following this link. This is good news indeed: the RAM chips we received are all working perfectly, even nearly 50 years after they were made, so we can now confidently move forward to the next steps of the restoration process. &nbsp; Work session at Viveris and starting up the Micral N We therefore organized another working session with our team of volunteers at our partner Viveris which, remember, provides the association with a fantastic electronic laboratory at their premises in Rungis near Paris. We were still in the middle of COVID, hence the mandatory mask! &nbsp; Most of the team will be able to continue studying and testing the various electronic boards of our Micral N, with the possibility, if we don&#8217;t detect any problem, to try and restart our machine for the first time! All the members present are very motivated, the atmosphere is excellent. We were joined for a few moments by a Viveris manager, curious to witness our work on the machine. &nbsp; The main electronic boards critical to the operation of the machine, at least according to our [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/en\/verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"MO5.COM\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Association-MO5COM\/9540357570\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-04-13T18:19:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-04T20:24:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/mo5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/IMG_20211218_150136.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1440\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philippe Dubois\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@assomo5\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@assomo5\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philippe Dubois\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mo5.com\\\/verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mo5.com\\\/verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Philippe Dubois\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mo5.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/c389d0a47ac596b1fd688078cc054924\"},\"headline\":\"Verification of proper operation and first start of the Micral N\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-04-13T18:19:57+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-05-04T20:24:18+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mo5.com\\\/verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1125,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mo5.com\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mo5.com\\\/verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mo5.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2023\\\/01\\\/IMG_20211218_150136.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Micral\",\"Non class\u00e9\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mo5.com\\\/verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/mo5.com\\\/verification-proper-operation-and-first-start-micral-n\\\/\",\"name\":\"Verification of proper operation and first start of the Micral N - 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Translation by S\u00e9bastien Marty. In this eighth article, we are going to get a little more into the heart of the matter. After having studied, reverse-engineered the Micral N&#8217;s boards and even replaced some components, we are finally about to restart our unit for the first time after almost 50 years! Indeed, the study and reverse-engineering of the boards are going well with the help of Jean-Fran\u00e7ois, Sylvain and Arthur. We took out all the boards from our Micral N one by one over the past few weeks to carefully photograph and even scan them in high definition, and began to draw the circuits to document them and better understand how they work. All our work will soon be listed on a dedicated site We also took the opportunity of our progress on the restoration of our unit to produce a live broadcast on the MO5 association&#8217;s Twitch channel with our friend E-Penser as a guest star, dedicated to the history of R2E and of the Micral N! The video is now available on our Youtube channel (french only) : Live sur l&#8217;histoire du Micral N. &nbsp; Replacing faulty RAM chips Thanks to the device specially created by Jean-Fran\u00e7ois to dump our Micral N&#8217;s ROMs and test its very old \u2013 and therefore very specific \u2013 RAM chips, we were able to determine that out of the few dozen chips contained in our machine, only one was defective ! This contrasts dramatically with the poor quality of more modern RAM chips used in 8-bit microcomputers in the 80s. Fortunately, we were able to find RAM chips of the same series on a famous auction site in the United States, which of course were tested on arrival. One of them will therefore replace the defective chip in our Micral N. As a reminder, these are SRAM chips (static random access memory) of 1024 bits each, so that&#8217;s only 128 bytes in total! You can see what this historical SRAM chip from 1972 looks like by following this link. This is good news indeed: the RAM chips we received are all working perfectly, even nearly 50 years after they were made, so we can now confidently move forward to the next steps of the restoration process. &nbsp; Work session at Viveris and starting up the Micral N We therefore organized another working session with our team of volunteers at our partner Viveris which, remember, provides the association with a fantastic electronic laboratory at their premises in Rungis near Paris. We were still in the middle of COVID, hence the mandatory mask! &nbsp; Most of the team will be able to continue studying and testing the various electronic boards of our Micral N, with the possibility, if we don&#8217;t detect any problem, to try and restart our machine for the first time! All the members present are very motivated, the atmosphere is excellent. 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