Yeah, it seems that all my retired friends have way less time now than they did when they were working (especially the married ones... ;-) ----- Original Message ----- From: David Flippo To: Model 100 Discussion Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 3:34 PM Subject: Re: [M100] TDock
Mike if you're looking to retirement to have time for these projects; I've been retired for three years; just now trying to make a little time to pursue things like this! Sent from my iPhone On May 20, 2015, at 11:57 AM, Mike Stein <[email protected]> wrote: Swamped with work at the moment, but retirement's just around the corner so hope to have some time to get back to this soon; I'll be in touch if/when. Thanks! m ----- Original Message ----- From: Gmail To: Model 100 Discussion Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 2:52 PM Subject: Re: [M100] TDock Hey Mike, I don't know that I have "magic pointers" so much, but I do have working assembly code that redirects it to the printer port. Ken Sent from my iPhone On May 20, 2015, at 10:44 AM, MikeS <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Ken, Regarding the display speed, I guess we'd have to try it but most of the old-time terminals generally ran pretty well at 9600bd or less (a Linux tty would be equivalent); the M100's local display routines aren't the speediest anyway (especially scrolling). FWIW 8x40 works quite well displayed with a terminal program at 19200 (either VT100 or Heath emulations were the closest IIRC), and scrolling would/should presumably be local in the remote 'display controller' and not involve the BT link. The "(internal)" BT was meant as a fairly trivial optional mod for tinkerers to make for a neater package, but the P&P BlueM or equivalent would do just fine. Yes, to display the M100 on an external display I just redirect the appropriate RST 7 hook to the com port with a simple poke, but couldn't find any built-in way to correctly handle 80x25 (especially the 25) mode and its various related cursor and screen control codes; I was hoping you had some magic pointers to fully implement SCREEN 1 (?) mode but redirectable to COM: instead of sending it out over the bus. Might have to revisit this some day. Of course the only real downside to using the serial port for the BT link to 'everything' is that it ties up the port so you couldn't use the M100 as an 80 column terminal, for example, but possibly you could make the data/display connections within the remote device; guess at this point we're reinventing John's tablet/smartphone solution... Maybe a $40.00 tablet with some software is the answer after all... ;-) m ----- Original Message ----- From: Ken Pettit To: Model 100 Discussion Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 12:49 PM Subject: Re: [M100] TDock Hey Mike, I suppose you could use serial port + Bluetooth to drive an 80x25 character display. But I wonder how slow it would be to do scrolling, etc. I was already worried about how slow a parallel port implementation would be relative to a true system bus connection. And I think the tricky part about what you said is the word "internal" as it relates to Bluetooth. Most people don't want to take their machines apart and take a soldering iron to them, myself included and I even have the skills to do it (or at least I tell myself I do ;) As far as the how, the SysROM has multiple RST 7 hooks for sending characters to the LCD. And it uses RAM variables to record the current screen dimensions (which are initialized to 40x8). Redirecting to anything other than the internal LCD (i.e. DVI system bus, parallel port, serial port, etc.) requires installing a relatively small .CO program and RST7 hooks to intercept the data going to the LCD. And BASIC has a WIDTH command for setting the width to either 40 or 80. But the WIDTH command will fail unless you have actually installed a RST7 hook to handle it. Ken On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 9:09 AM, MikeS <[email protected]> wrote: ----- Original Message ----- From: Gmail To: Model 100 Discussion Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 11:22 AM Subject: Re: [M100] TDock Ken, Tell me more! Pretty well everything that's being discussed is already available today; connect to an old laptop via Bluetooth and you've got your display interface, USB/SD/HD storage, WiFi etc. If that $9.00 SBC becomes a reality it should be able to do the same thing, sort of a wireless super-NADSbox.. That's the way I'd go, a separately powered portable standalone device linked to the ModelT via (internal) Bluetooth. When I put the M100's display up on the big screen TV it was usually for playing M100 format text games and puzzles while reclining on the couch so 80 column mode wasn't really an issue for me, but I did investigate the 80 column screen mode a bit way back when with no success. I then assumed it was part of the DVI DOS but I gather it's actually included in the basic BASIC; any hints about how to get at it, preferably redirecting out the serial port? And of course then there's the issue of drawing graphics on an 80x25 equivalent display... ;-) m ---------------- Hi Bob, Actually no ROM changes are needed. The existing ROM already supports 80x25 text mode displays (though not for the MENU program). Ken Sent from my iPhone On May 20, 2015, at 7:18 AM, Bob Pigford <[email protected]> wrote: I agree with Van and others: TDOCK needs to be a Dock (not portable) and may be powered with a wall wart. For me, an 80 X 25 display would be the ultimate goal, not just duplicating the ModelT screen on a larger display. For instance, I think one might already be able to run VirtualT on a Raspberry Pi and have a virtual ModelT on a larger screen, but what is the point in that. I want to have the great ModelT keyboard, serial & parallel ports, etc, on my desk while looking at a full screen of characters. The hardest part of that might be the changes to the ROM. I will point out that Steve鈥檚 REX can be operated in ROM replacement mode such that a custom modified 鈥渟oft鈥� ROM (adjusted for 80 X 25 display) can be used without actually creating or requiring a new physical ROM. SD card storage in TDOCK would also be terrific freeing the serial port for BlueM. I think that HDMI may be the best video solution for TDOCK, and there are many small HDMI screen choices available. For example, see http://www.adafruit.com/category/63 If you only have a VGA screen, then an HDMI to VGA adapter could be used. I am doing this now with a RPi and a VGA screen. I think that Wifi and internet connectivity delivered directly from TDOCK might be way down the road, but Ken鈥檚 initial design could allow design 鈥渟pace鈥� for that later enhancement. As to Ken鈥檚 question about I/O capability (like A/D and digital pins), that would be nice but not necessary. If you want to touch the real world of sensors, motors, and the like, a serial connection to an Arduino will suffice (cheap hardware and easier programming on the ModelT end). Of course, if a Raspberry Pi were to be used as the engine under the TDOCK hood, I/O pins and HDMI are already there, as well as USB ports for add-ons like Wifi. \
