Panasonic FS-A1GT Technical Guide

The Panasonic FS-A1GT Technical Guide is Matsushita's Technical Guide No. 107 for the Panasonic FS-A1GT MSX turbo R computer, issued in February 1992 by the company's Word Processor Division. It is in Japanese and runs to 68 printed pages, here in 61 PDF pages because the board layouts and circuit diagrams are double-page spreads. The cover gives the specification and the standard price of ¥99,800 (excluding tax) as at December 1991.

The scanned copy carries the stamp of the MSX Computer Club Gouda on its cover and contents page. The Internet Archive and the MSX Archive both hold it. The copy hosted here keeps every page image at its original resolution and re-compresses it, which brings the file from 126 MB to 22 MB.

Contents

The guide's own contents list (printed page 2):

Contents of Technical Guide No. 107

Section	Printed page	PDF page
Features and specifications	Cover	1
Names of parts (front and rear drawings)	3	3
Keyboard	4	4
In-service notes: built-in software, supplied disks, backup RAM and clock setting	5, 6	5, 6
Word processor software	7 to 9	7 to 9
MSX View	10	10
Memory map, slot map and I/O map	11	11
Disassembly	12, 13	12, 13
Pass/fail checks (power circuit, clocks, video, audio, FM, backup)	14 to 16	14 to 16
Hard-check floppy: test list, procedure and error tables	17 to 32	17 to 32
Block diagram	33, 34	33
Main board layout, component side	35, 36	34
Main board circuit diagram (three sheets)	37 to 42	35 to 37
Main board layout, solder side	43, 44	38
LED board, switch board and keyboard flexible pattern layouts	45	39
Key matrix and keytop assignments	46	40
IC block diagrams and pin functions	47 to 58	41 to 52
Parts list, electrical parts	59 to 62	53 to 56
Exploded view	63, 64	57
Parts list, mechanical and structural parts	65 to 67	58 to 60
Packing and accessories	68	61

The sections a repairer will use most:

• Pass/fail checks (printed page 14). The power circuit is described as a DC/DC converter for +5 V and regulators for +12 V and −12 V, all fed from the secondary of transformer T1. The guide gives the expected readings: +5 V ±0.25 V at the collector of Q1, about +21 V in and +12 ±1.2 V out at IC2, and about −22 V in and −12 ±1.2 V out at IC3. It then lists the clock test points with oscilloscope traces: IC12 pins 8 and 64, IC36 pin 21, IC26 pin 45, IC10 pin 8 and IC37 pin 66.
• Hard-check floppy (printed pages 17 to 32). Panasonic's diagnostic disk, management number DF-4, tests VRAM, main RAM and SRAM, the ROM checksums, the keyboard, the printer and joystick ports, the drive's write-protect line, PCM, sprites, FM, SRAM backup, the RTC, the Z80, turbo and super turbo modes, and the MIDI interface. Pages 27 to 32 give, for each test, the parts to suspect when it fails.
• Disassembly (printed pages 12 and 13): the top cabinet, keyboard, floppy drive, main board, LED board, operating panel and switch board.
• The power supply is on sheet 3 of the main board circuit diagram (printed pages 41 and 42), and its parts are at the front left of the component-side layout (printed pages 35 and 36).
• The electrical parts list (printed pages 59 to 62) gives every capacitor with its Panasonic part number, and the mechanical list (printed pages 65 to 67) gives the transformer, power switch, mains lead and floppy drive assembly.

What this guide does not contain

• The hard-check floppy (DF-4) itself is not part of the scan, so the tests on pages 17 to 32 need a copy of the disk. The error tables still say which parts to look at for each kind of fault.
• The floppy drive is listed only as a complete assembly (EME213MU). There is no drive circuit, belt part number or drive adjustment.
• Most text pages were scanned at 100 dpi in greyscale. They are readable, but small print in the parts list needs zooming in. The board layouts and circuit diagrams are at 300 dpi.
• The text and the drawings disagree in two places:
  • The specification on the cover lists a 75 Ω RF output. The rear-view drawing on page 3 shows no RF socket, and the electrical parts list has no RF modulator.
  • The pass/fail text on page 14 gives the −12 V regulator's input as pin 1 of IC3. On the circuit diagram and on the board's silkscreen, pin 1 of IC3 (AN7912T) is ground and pin 2 is the input.

Pages that cite this document

• Panasonic FS-A1GT: specifications, board and power supply.
• Panasonic FS-A1GT General Maintenance: disassembly, backup cells, supply checks.
• Panasonic FS-A1GT Troubleshooting Guide: pass/fail readings and the error tables.
• Panasonic FS-A1GT Capacitor Replacement Guide: the electrolytic capacitor list.

Other copies

The MSX Archive also holds a 17-page short version of the same guide (panasonicturborgtsm.pdf), scanned by Dennis Koller and Marcel Delorme and converted to PDF by Hans Otten in 2001. It has the cover, the part names, the keyboard and memory map pages, the IC block diagrams and four of the large board drawings at a higher resolution, but no parts list, disassembly or test pages.

References

Download: Panasonic FS-A1GT Technical Guide No. 107.pdf