[cctalk] Does anyone have MP/M II disks/images for the Altos ACS-8000?

[Chris Osborn via cctalk]

I just got my Altos ACS-8000 hard disk controller repaired yesterday and was 
able to connect the Gesswein MFM emulator and format it, run through the 
read/write tests, and copy some files onto it. Now I'd like to install MP/M II, 
but it seems there's no archive sites anywhere that have copies of MP/M II for 
the Altos with the 8500 board. I found a single zip file which has a smattering 
of some of the files that were on the two Altos MP/M II distribution disks, but 
doesn't have the OS tracks, and of course all the XIOS files are missing.

I'm going to see if I can find another way to get MP/M II, such as working from 
the generic version and making my own XIOS (using the Altos listing in the MP/M 
II manual as reference), or seeing if the MP/M II for the Altos 5 series might 
be usable with minor modification. But it would be nice to get a copy of the 
original distribution disks.

--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com
RetroBattlestations.com

Re: PBX (or something) for modem testing

[Chris Osborn via cctalk]

On Dec 4, 2019, at 12:07 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk  
wrote:

> What sort of connection speeds are you getting?
> 
> What codec(s) are you using?  ulaw / alaw / something else?

https://www.insentricity.com/a.cl/230/using-modems-without-phone-lines

--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com

Re: Question about modems

[Chris Osborn via cctalk]

On Nov 15, 2019, at 1:54 PM, alan--- via cctalk  wrote:

> MCU should set receive line coding to 8,N,1.  When in command mode, you don't 
> care about parity

Actually it's in command mode that you *do* care about parity, which is why I 
added the parity detection in the first place. Without the parity detection 
there's no way for the modem to send back the command responses with the 
correct parity. That made it cumbersome to use tcpser when using terminals or 
communications software that insist on using even/odd/mark parity and would 
drop any characters that had the wrong parity.

--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com

Re: Question about modems

[Chris Osborn via cctalk]

On Nov 13, 2019, at 5:07 PM, Fred Cisin via cctalk  
wrote:

> What do you need to do to use an acoustic modem with a cellphone?
> You can get a "retro" handset for a cellphone, that will fit the rubber cups, 
> but, will it work?

Yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQqWHLZjOjA

--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com

Re: BASIC (Was: Reading HP2000 tapes

[Chris Osborn via cctalk]

On Jul 18, 2018, at 10:21 AM, Paul Berger via cctalk  
wrote:

> I would think that any interpreted BASIC would do this or for that matter any 
> interpreted language except maybe for APL 

You'd think so but many BASIC dialects don't fully tokenize. Many leave in all 
the extra spaces the user types in, such as the Microsoft BASIC on various 
Commodores. Some BASICs even require the spaces in order to properly parse 
during tokenization.

There's a page here which includes a field for machines which do full 
tokenization:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_computers_with_on-board_BASIC

--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com

Does anyone have a working Dataspeed Conductor floppy controller?

[Chris Osborn via cctalk]

I acquired a Dataspeed Conductor floppy controller about a month ago in order 
to install it in my IMSAI with the JAIR 8080 so I could hook up some 8" floppy 
drives. Fortunately it came with a manual, schematics, and an example BIOS for 
CP/M 1.4. I've been fighting with it for quite a while though and I feel like I 
am so *very* close to making it work, but now I've hit a road block that makes 
me question whether the design ever worked at all!

I had to replace the two missing 74LS51 chips and a tantalum capacitor that 
blew up because it was installed the wrong way, and modified the board to send 
the phantom signal since it wants to memory map I/O at 0xF000-0xF0FF and I 
didn't want to have to give up 8k of RAM. I also verified that the FD1791 in it 
is good by installing it into my TRS-80 Model II and connecting my 8" drives to 
it and was able to read/write existing disks and format new disks both in FM 
and MFM formats. I also used my TL866 to test as many of the 74xx chips on the 
DS Conductor as I could.

I've modified the JAIR BIOS so that it supports the DS Conductor and when I try 
to access a floppy drive the head seeks to the correct track and the head loads 
and it attempts to read data. However no data ever comes in to the RREAD pin on 
the FD1791. I pulled out the oscilloscope and logic analyzer and I can see data 
coming from the drive and clock signals are being generated at the right 
frequencies. But as I trace things through I see they ran the raw data into an 
LS193 4-bit counter, and then ran the carry output over to the FD1791. The 
carry output never changes because every 6 to 7 bits of raw data the counter is 
reset by a 74LS123. This makes no sense to me!

I've scanned the manual and put up here if you want to take a look at it:

 http://www.retrobattlestations.com/Dataspeed-Conductor/DS-Conductor-Manual.pdf

Does anyone have a Dataspeed Conductor in their system and have it working?

--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com

Re: VCF?

[Chris Osborn via cctalk]

On Aug 7, 2017, at 12:04 PM, dwight via cctalk  wrote:

> I've not seen any photos posted yet.

I've been posting pictures of things I brought home from VCFWest as I tinker 
with them to Twitter. I haven't even been posting my stuff to 
RetroBattlestations! Don't want to stop and organize my thoughts and photos 
since I'm having too much fun!

--
Follow me on twitter: @FozzTexx
Check out my blog: http://insentricity.com