Well, assuming you have the somewhat scarce cable and don't mind storing and loading tapes, fiddling with volume levels and the relative reliability issues of mechanical devices then the fact that it's built into the OS can indeed be a convenience.
But once TS-DOS is installed in ROM and connected to an Android box/phone or computer it is just as 'built-in' and considerably more convenient and faster. I was sure happy when I got my first disk drive back in the day and could retire the tape drives (although I still have most of the various Commodore PET etc. tapes from those prehistoric days...) As a matter of fact some of the commercial Burroughs systems I worked on back then used cassettes; nothing like watching a sort running on a four-drive system, miniature versions of those massive reel to reel drives you see in the background of every old sci-fi film. But having said that, I do understand and respect 'me's choice; no need to justify anything that's fun or enjoyable (like Model T's in the first place ;-) ). I just wanted to confirm that he's aware of the various alternatives. There is also the external video & CP/M conflict issue though, since it looks like it will be necessary to disable the cassette connection in order to use the BCR port for video. m ----- Original Message ----- From: Brian White To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, April 27, 2020 5:40 AM Subject: Re: [M100] My M200 is sick It does remain the only built-in way to load and save binary data. If something breaks that, you don't need a reason for that to be a problem even if you would only rarely use it. On Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 11:29 AM Mike Stein <[email protected]> wrote: With so many other options for saving data why so determined to use a tape drive? ----- Original Message ----- From: me To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2020 8:46 AM Subject: Re: [M100] My M200 is sick I must've inadvertently backed up my data about 3 days ago. So I have about 20% recovered. That's a better than nothing. I'll backup everytime I create a new document until I get that tape drive. And the cables On 4/26/20 5:11 AM, me wrote: thank you for the tip. i saw that there were two backups right before it froze. now i know what that is. i'll have to put out calendar to remind myself. one project of mine this summer is to learn 8085 assembly so i can write some apps for this sucker. i love this thing. can't wait to get my 100 back up and running too. D On April 26, 2020 5:08:16 AM PDT, Stephen Adolph <[email protected]> wrote: I would suggest that one of the main things to do with REX is to back up ram images into the REX flash chip for storage. if you have 3 banks then you have 3x24 kb. Sorry you had to restart it. Hard to say what root cause is, but saving progress to REX regularly is a good thing to do. On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 8:03 AM me <[email protected]> wrote: Okay, I wiped the memory and now it's back to normal. Thanks. i'll just have to live with the loss of my work and redo it. I'm sure it'll be better than the original. Anyway, i have to reenable the rex manager and i'm back to business. Thanks for the help. I'll remember this for next time. I cant wait to get my tape drive so I can save my work to that so if this happens again i won't be screwed. On 4/26/20 4:59 AM, me wrote: The battery inside was replaced in 2018. The aa's were tested and they're at 1.4+ I have done the whole restart, resetting it, but I haven't done the memory wipe. In the four-five days I've had it, I've written alot on it. I'd like to keep the files. I dno't know how to check how much ram is on it, though. Yes, it's REX that I was tabbing going to different banks, all three.. Bank 1 was pretty much full. Bank 2 is where I'm keeping all my documents, and bank 3 is unused. I won't be removing REX if it'll corrupt the power up bank.. On 4/26/20 4:09 AM, Stephen Adolph wrote: That's a very common screen in my opinion with T200. I always get that when my T200 has been sitting unused for a while, and I am more or less convinced that it relates to the nicad batts being a bit low. with or without REX. But I have never really root caused this weakness in how T200 powers up. To recover it, I usually do a combination of (1) cold restart (2) toggle memory power switch (3) pulling power completely. What the state of the RAM is afterwards is the question. Certainly, you can try removing REX. There is a good chance that your RAM will be corrupted if you do that though (at least in the power up bank, the other banks should be ok). If there is an important file that you need to get back, I would say there are ways to extract the raw memory from a ram bank AFTER a cold restart. How much RAM is installed? You mention TAB - TAB (for changing banks) is a REX feature that is equivalent to the BANK function key. If you pull REX out, TAB won't work, so use the function key.. And if REX Manager software is not correctly installed in the T200, TAB will also not work. On Sun, Apr 26, 2020 at 4:18 AM me <[email protected]> wrote: My model 200 is on the fritz this evening. Video description below: https://www.omgwtflol.net/nextcloud/index.php/s/gMS9cbc6fWdaQQL I'm happy to take suggestions while I read the service manual. Daniel
