If you're keeping the WP-2, maybe I can interest you in a trade for a
512k (4 banks of 128) ic-card that goes in the slot, and needs no
battery to die or leak or corrode, for the goldcard stuff?
The parts alone add up to about $100 believe it or not, so it's not a
lowball offer :) but you don't have to worry the other way either, I am
totally fine with it.
If your internal ramdisk isn't filled I can toss in the 128k chip that
goes in there too. They are cheap and simple to install, just an
off-the-shelf sram that pops into a DIP-32 socket already inside, no
soldering.
--
bkw
On 12/22/23 10:24, Steve Baker wrote:
Hello again!
Ah — an interesting experiment, for sure! Bummer that it didn’t work. :-(
If you’re interested in the goldcard system itself, stay tuned… over the
holidays I will prepare a “mega sale” of sorts with many T102s and at
least one T200 and T600, along with a variety of gadgets (gold box,
Rex/Rex#, TPPD1, serial-WiFi adapters, spare chargers, cables, caps,
batteries, manuals, and the like).
When the list of items is ready — probably early January — I will post
the it along with photos, with the intent of bundling as many of them
together as possible. I wouldd rather not sell each item separately, yet
I’m open to spot offers for something in particular. eBay would be a
last resort if there’s no interest here.
My love for the Model T ecosystem emerged as a pleasant distraction and
way to focus on something positive while caring for my wife who battled
a rare, incurable form of cancer for over six years. After she passed I
haven’t touched any of these. I will keep a few T102s and some
accessories for down the road.
But with so many of them in boxes, I’d rather offer them to this vibrant
community so they can be (repaired as needed and) enjoyed for years to
come. I loved writing that Model T Dice Box utility and will
occasionally still journal on my Tandy WP-2. But it’s time to release
the bulk of them into other caring hands.
Happy holidays,
Steve
--
Greetings from Steve Baker (he/him/his)
“Gravity brings me down…”
On Dec 22, 2023, at 10:06 AM, Brian K. White <[email protected]> wrote:
...and the reason I noticed was I was hoping maybe the goldcard worked
the same as the node rampac (not physically but the interface & api,
and so maybe the rom could work on minindp.
No and no :)
On 12/22/23 05:51, Steve Baker wrote:
Seasons Greetings!
Good catch, thanks! I’ll update my directory with the file you
posted. :-)
Again, thanks,
Steve
—
Greetings from Steve Baker
Gravity brings me down...
On Dec 22, 2023, at 12:24 AM, Brian K. White <[email protected]>
wrote:
Steve, I just noticed that the GoldCard 7.1 rom image is wrong in
your Club100 directory. It's a copy of the DISK+ 3.1 rom.
However, the hex file is correct. I converted it to a binary and
here is a copy of that: http://tandy.wiki/File:GoldCard_7.1.bin
--
bkw
On 1/11/21 19:40, Steve Baker wrote:
Greetings again Brian and everyone,
I would never ask to break something.
If it has screws or obvious snaps, and you're comfy then fine,
otherwise don't think one second about it.
My sincere apologies! I didn’t for a moment think that you were
asking me to break anything; my post was simply me lamenting my
emerging but nascent skills! The case appears to be quite well
stuck together, and I was hoping that I might’ve been able to crack
it open without needing to hot glue it back together (ugh, my glue
gun chops are awful!).
But… I did take a peek at the 256Kb IC cards and sure enough,
there’s not only a battery compartment that easily unscrewed, but
also an on/off switch! Pretty cool stuff, so I took some more
photos and added two slides into the PDF (pages 12 and 13, in
particular). This also shows the other 32Kb IC card I have (sure
enough, it initialized and works!).
This should be a direct link to the updated PDF with the additional
photos, for convenience (if this doesn’t work, the link to the
folder is in the thread, below):
http://www.club100.org/memfiles/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=Gold
<http://www.club100.org/memfiles/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=Gold> Card 7.10
Photos and 1988 Review.pdf&directory=Steve Baker&
Next for me with the Goldmine (clearly, I like giving things
nicknames) is in the software; I'd like to figure out more about
the ROM Eliminator feature chronicled in the article (slide 17).
Might they have a precursor to REX? While mine is probably not the
industrial interface ($100 option) perhaps the ability to save and
restore Option ROMs is available?
Onward we go,
SB
--
Greetings from Steve Baker
“Gravity brings me down…”
On Jan 11, 2021, at 6:54 PM, Brian White <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I would never ask to break something.
If it has screws or obvious snaps, and you're comfy then fine,
otherwise don't think one second about it.
Thanks for dumping the rom and the pics.
On Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:07 PM Steve Baker <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
From Brian K. White:
Could you look a little more at the cards?
Do they come apart to see the board inside?
Is the battery permanent or a removable coin cell?
Does the main unit with the sockets come apart to see that board?
Good questions and thoughts @Brian thanks for your follow-up with
this! In the next day or two I’ll poke around a little bit. I’m a
bit squeamish to crack open stuff, not for fear of discovery but
for fear of naively breaking brittle rare stuff! I’ll do my best
to do what I can (if I see something I can open and/and detach, I
certainly will!).
Whatever I’m able to learn on the hardware side, I’ll take
additional pictures and update the PDF (and post here letting you
and others know). I also happen to have a Tarjeta IC Card
MF3132-003T originally for Noritsu machines that I wanted to use
in my Tandy WP-2 (sadly, it doesn’t work) so I’ll see if it works
in this fella at all.
I love how thin the unit is.
Yes, the black plastic case is incredibly thin and I could see how
convenient it would be to have it affixed under the Model T
(especially if the user has two of those groovy little legs
installed as kick-stands of sorts). I’ll probably replace the
battery and caps on this particular T102, retr0brite the case, and
nickname it Goldmine. ;-)
Cheers,
SB
--
Greetings from Steve Baker
“Gravity brings me down…”
On Jan 11, 2021, at 1:17 PM, Brian K. White <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
This is very cool.
Could you look a little more at the cards?
Do they come apart to see the board inside?
Is the battery permanent or a removable coin cell?
Does the main unit with the sockets come apart to see that board?
I love how thin the unit is.
-- bkw
On 1/10/21 5:25 PM, Steve Baker wrote:
Thanks! Yep, it’s very well-built and I’m looking forward to
digging into it once I (finally) put together my MVT100 kit that
you sent me months ago! (I’m perhaps too cautious…)
By chance, is Mo still associated with King Computer Services
(that’s one of the companies mentioned in the credits screen)? I
sent an email to them and attached the PDF too.
https://www.kingcomputerservices.com/contact.htm
<https://www.kingcomputerservices.com/contact.htm>
<https://www.kingcomputerservices.com/contact.htm
<https://www.kingcomputerservices.com/contact.htm>>
It’d be great to learn more about the history of this project,
how long it was on the market, if the manuals are available
somewhere, etc. (looks like I’ve found my next windmill).
Cheers and again, thanks,
SB
--
Greetings from Steve Baker
“Gravity brings me down…”
On Jan 10, 2021, at 5:10 PM, Stephen Adolph
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>>
wrote:
very interesting! Never seen that before.
Well Mo Budlong wrote some very good software, I'm sure it is
really a good device.
thanks for putting that together!
Steve
On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 4:06 PM Steve Baker
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
<mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>> wrote:
Quick update on my (previously mysterious) Gold 7.10 chip. I
dusted off the corresponding hardware (an interesting
case with
two 256Kb IC cards that plugs into the system bus) and was
able to
get it working. It offers two banks of 256Kb storage plus
some
utilities to format and test IC cards, copy cards, transfer
files
to/from RAM, and so on.
Today I made a quick PDF that has (a) photos of the software
running on a Tandy 102, the chip itself, and the IC case and
cards; and (b) a two-part article written by Mike Nugget
in the
Oct/Nov 1988 issues of Portable 100. Thought it might be
interesting to read a more robust hands-on review, as I’m
just
starting to figure out what this does.
The PDF is stored here in my Club100 folder:
http://www.club100.org/memfiles/index.php?direction=0&order=&directory=Steve%20Baker&;
<http://www.club100.org/memfiles/index.php?direction=0&order=&directory=Steve Baker&>
<http://www.club100.org/memfiles/index.php?direction=0&order=&directory=Steve%20Baker&;
<http://www.club100.org/memfiles/index.php?direction=0&order=&directory=Steve%20Baker&;>>
… along with the HEX and BX files of the chip itself. Now I’m
totally curious about what I have… given the chip has a
hand-written label, is this a pre-production version? Or
were all
of them shipped like this, thereby asserting a relatively low
volume (the 512k set had a list price of $550 back in ’88)?
Well,
it’ll be fun to see what I can do with it.
Cheers and here’s to a good week,
SB
—
Greetings from Steve Baker
“Gravity brings me down…”
-- bkw
--
bkw
--
bkw
--
bkw
