Re: Panda Display USB support in klh10 working

[Mike Ross]

Well if you decide to produce it - as a kit of parts or a finished
product! - put me on the list; I'll take two or three of them. Email
me direct if you like.

Mike

On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 10:06 AM, David Griffith  wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Jan 2016, Mike Ross wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 8:43 PM, David Griffith  wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> I've managed to edit klh10 to talk to my new USB Panda Display
>>
>>
>> *blinks*
>>
>> There's a USB Panda display?
>>
>> I bought two of the original parallel port Panda displays years ago.
>> Recently wasted a lot of time trying to get them to work. The Windows
>> diagnostic tool program works perfectly - sending patterns to lights
>> and running them. But try to use them with klh and they initialize
>> with a few random lights on when you start it and then never change at
>> any point until *hardware* power is cycled. Evidently there's
>> something screwy and the support for them was never actually
>> incorporated into klh and/or the final Panda TOPS-20 release.
>
>
> One of the big limitations of the original Panda Display is that the
> parallel port is accessed through IO ports, not the operating system.
> Because of that, a USB-to-parallel converter will not work.  I also got one
> of the original displays.  By the time I built it up, I didn't have easy
> access to a real parallel port.  That's when I started to design a USB-based
> display.  The hardware and firmware is fairly simple.  The klh10 side of it
> is more complicated.
>
>
> --
> David Griffith
> d...@661.org
>
> A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
> Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
> A: Top-posting.
> Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?



-- 

http://www.corestore.org
'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.
Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame.
For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'

Re: Panda Display USB support in klh10 working

[David Griffith]

On Mon, 4 Jan 2016, Mike Ross wrote:


On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 8:43 PM, David Griffith  wrote:


I've managed to edit klh10 to talk to my new USB Panda Display


*blinks*

There's a USB Panda display?

I bought two of the original parallel port Panda displays years ago.
Recently wasted a lot of time trying to get them to work. The Windows
diagnostic tool program works perfectly - sending patterns to lights
and running them. But try to use them with klh and they initialize
with a few random lights on when you start it and then never change at
any point until *hardware* power is cycled. Evidently there's
something screwy and the support for them was never actually
incorporated into klh and/or the final Panda TOPS-20 release.


One of the big limitations of the original Panda Display is that the 
parallel port is accessed through IO ports, not the operating system. 
Because of that, a USB-to-parallel converter will not work.  I also got 
one of the original displays.  By the time I built it up, I didn't have 
easy access to a real parallel port.  That's when I started to design a 
USB-based display.  The hardware and firmware is fairly simple.  The klh10 
side of it is more complicated.


--
David Griffith
d...@661.org

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?

Re: Panda Display USB support in klh10 working

[Mike Ross]

On Sun, Jan 3, 2016 at 8:43 PM, David Griffith  wrote:
>
> I've managed to edit klh10 to talk to my new USB Panda Display

*blinks*

There's a USB Panda display?

I bought two of the original parallel port Panda displays years ago.
Recently wasted a lot of time trying to get them to work. The Windows
diagnostic tool program works perfectly - sending patterns to lights
and running them. But try to use them with klh and they initialize
with a few random lights on when you start it and then never change at
any point until *hardware* power is cycled. Evidently there's
something screwy and the support for them was never actually
incorporated into klh and/or the final Panda TOPS-20 release.

Mike

http://www.corestore.org
'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.
Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame.
For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'

Panda Display USB support in klh10 working

[David Griffith]

I've managed to edit klh10 to talk to my new USB Panda Display, but I'm 
quite sure it's not displaying things correctly.  What can I run to get it 
to display a recognizable pattern?  I'm thinking of whatever is causing 
the parallel display at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_LcQ5apODg to do 
what it's doing.


To make a quick and dirty USB Panda Display, wire up an atmega328
according to the schematics at

To start playing with this, first clone
https://github.com/DavidGriffith/panda-display.  You don't need Kicad at
this point.  Just open up panda-sch.pdf and wire up an atmega328 (maybe at
atmega8 will do) with a 20MHz crystal.  Other crystals can be used if you
alter the Makefile accordingly.  Use a max7219 matrix LED module.  It's a
board with an 8x8 matrix of LEDs and a max7219.  You'll also need a AVR
ISP breakout board and a USB-B breakout board.

A Unix environment is assumed here.  Set your AVR programmer (edit
makefile to match yours) such that it _DOES_NOT_ supply power to the
circuit.  Connect the programmer to the board and to your computer.  Then
connect a USB cable from your computer to the circuit.  Go into the
firmware directory, type "make hex" to build the firmware.  Then "make
program" to program the AVR.  The circuit should reset itself and then
display an X.  Now type "make ptest" to build a test program with which
you can send bytes to the Panda Display and see them immediately.  Use it
like this "./ptest 0x23, 0xff, 0x9a" and so on.

Once you're happy with that, move on to klh10.  Get my patched version at
https://github.com/DavidGriffith/klh10 and build it like usual.  I used
the base-kl target and the klt20.ini config file from Mark Crispin's Panda
distribution.  Start the emulator and before you type "GO", type "lights
on".  You should be told that the Panda Display was initialized.  Type
"GO" and get things going.  The LED matrix will then start blinking.  I
don't know how it's supposed to look at this point.  The RUN light appears
to be at the bottom left of the matrix given that it blinks at 1 Hz.

Here's a udev rule that will work for the Panda Display:
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idProduct}=="05df", ATTRS{idVendor}=="16c0",
MODE="0770", ATTRS{product}=="Panda Display", GROUP="plugdev"

Please play around with this and let me know what you think.  Again,
please tell me how I can get a predictable pattern going so I can get the
LEDs lit correctly.


--
David Griffith
d...@661.org

A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?