Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

[Brian White]

Randy I never answered your last question about the Model 200 cable.

It's these two items:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003PU1EVG/

https://www.amazon.com/Connector-Rainbow-Ribbon-Cable-1-6ft/dp/B00XP54YKE/

These are just representative examples pulled up quickly from amazon on my
phone. You can get the same things lots of different places including ebay
and digikey etc.

That's it. You just stick the gender changer into one end and stick that
end into the 102 or 200.

For polarity assurance, just keep the cable flat all the way to the
computer.

That's it. No soldering, and the lack of polarity key on the computer end
has an easy answer. And that cable works the same on both 102 and 200.

I mean it can buch up or fold or loop any way it wants once it's connected,
but just imagine both the DVI and the computer are sitting on a table, with
the back of the computer facing the front of the DVI, and both boxes are
sitting right-side up on their feet. From that starting position, the cable
travels from under the front of the DVI to the computer without twisting or
folding over. Whichever side of the cable is the bottom at the dvi, is also
the bottom at the computer. If it was a grey cable instead of tha rainbow
one, you could write "bottom" & "top" or "up" & "down" right on the cable
at the computer end with a sharpie, and that would be enough for even an
unsuspecting future owner to get it right safely. The DVI end is polarity
keyed so you don't have to worry about that end.

The only remaining annoyance with that cable is when you pull the cable out
of the computer, the gender-changer pins are just as likely to stay in the
computer as stay on the cable, and then they are a little difficult to get
out of the computer because there is nothing to get a grip on. So you might
want to use a tiny (tiny!) bit of super glue to keep the pins in the cable.
Just enough to stick the two black plastic parts together, but try to avoid
letting super glue wick and travel down into where the pins make contect
inside the connector on the cable.

Thanks to Mike Stein for the clue about the effect that kind of
straight-through doulble-ended pin header ends up having on the pin mapping
when you use one to butt two female idc plugs up to each other. It ends up
having the same effect as the twists in the normal cable.
-- 
bkw

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 8:10 PM Randall Kindig 
wrote:

> I currently have 2.  Until a few months ago I didn’t have any and had
> never seen a working unit.  Now I have 2 great working units.
>
> I allows the M100/102 to display on a monitor rather than the small LCD.
> It also gives it one or 2 disk drives.  They are great, if finicky.
>
> Randy
>
> On Jul 24, 2018, at 7:42 PM, Ken Gregg  wrote:
>
>
> I see one of these units up for auction on ebay right now:
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/Radio-Shack-Tandy-TRS-80-model-100-disk-video-interface/223062580269
>
> On 7/24/2018 12:25 PM, james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Oh! Well I've owned my M100 for years now and I had never seen the DVI.
> Are these rare? What advantages does this give over a stock M100 with a
> floppy drive? I gave a REX in mine, worth its weight in gold!
>
> Thanks for the replies guys, I still ashamed I didn't know what DVI was.
>
> Are these rare? Do many on the group have them?
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 24 Jul 2018, at 8:12 pm, Kurt McCullum  wrote:
>
> DVI = Disk Video Interface. It expanded the 100 or 200 with a 180k 5.25"
> disk drive and an external monitor. Attaches to the system bus and has it's
> own DOS.
>
> Kurt
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, at 12:07 PM, james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than it
> being a firm video output.
>
> What is DVI in relation to the M100?
>
>
>
>
>

Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

[Randall Kindig]

I currently have 2.  Until a few months ago I didn’t have any and had never 
seen a working unit.  Now I have 2 great working units.

I allows the M100/102 to display on a monitor rather than the small LCD.  It 
also gives it one or 2 disk drives.  They are great, if finicky.

Randy
> On Jul 24, 2018, at 7:42 PM, Ken Gregg  wrote:
> 
> 
> I see one of these units up for auction on ebay right now:  
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/Radio-Shack-Tandy-TRS-80-model-100-disk-video-interface/223062580269
>  
> 
> 
> On 7/24/2018 12:25 PM, james.z...@gmail.com  
> wrote:
>> Oh! Well I've owned my M100 for years now and I had never seen the DVI. Are 
>> these rare? What advantages does this give over a stock M100 with a floppy 
>> drive? I gave a REX in mine, worth its weight in gold!
>> 
>> Thanks for the replies guys, I still ashamed I didn't know what DVI was.
>> 
>> Are these rare? Do many on the group have them? 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> On 24 Jul 2018, at 8:12 pm, Kurt McCullum > > wrote:
>> 
>>> DVI = Disk Video Interface. It expanded the 100 or 200 with a 180k 5.25" 
>>> disk drive and an external monitor. Attaches to the system bus and has it's 
>>> own DOS.
>>> 
>>> Kurt
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, at 12:07 PM, james.z...@gmail.com 
>>>  wrote:
 Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than it 
 being a firm video output.
 
 What is DVI in relation to the M100?
>>> 
> 

Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

[Ken Gregg]

I see one of these units up for auction on ebay right now: 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Radio-Shack-Tandy-TRS-80-model-100-disk-video-interface/223062580269



On 7/24/2018 12:25 PM, james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
Oh! Well I've owned my M100 for years now and I had never seen the 
DVI. Are these rare? What advantages does this give over a stock M100 
with a floppy drive? I gave a REX in mine, worth its weight in gold!


Thanks for the replies guys, I still ashamed I didn't know what DVI was.

Are these rare? Do many on the group have them?



Sent from my iPad

On 24 Jul 2018, at 8:12 pm, Kurt McCullum > wrote:


DVI = Disk Video Interface. It expanded the 100 or 200 with a 180k 
5.25" disk drive and an external monitor. Attaches to the system bus 
and has it's own DOS.


Kurt


On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, at 12:07 PM, james.z...@gmail.com 
 wrote:
Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than 
it being a firm video output.


What is DVI in relation to the M100?

Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

[Greg Swallow]

As best as I can remember the history a DVI was an expensive little box, when 
they first came out. The biggest problem is the cable end connecting to the 
M100 system bus is a rather fragile 40 pin DIP. Mine has 2 broken pins now. 
Then came the M102 and M200 and a new connector, but then none of the after 
market products that used the M100 bus would work with the new M102 or M200.

There was an after market video interface, Kolor Kwik (I think), written about 
in Portable 100 Magazine. The author released a product based on the article 
which aloud the M100 to be attached to a VGA monitor, but no storage. Some 
other company released a similar product based on a submission from someone for 
development and those plans may have been based on the information in the 
article with some minor changes. Some kind of battle ensued. In the end DVI or 
other was a rather expensive addition at the time. When I finally got my DVI 
they were being discontinued and dumped from stores that had them for $99. I 
was so happy, until I tried to use Lucid on the DVI with a Tandy VM-2 Monitor. 
It was not pretty.

If anyone has any corrections to this chime in please.

God Bless,

GregS <><


- Original Message -
From: "james zeun" 
To: m...@bitchin100.com
Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2018 1:20:31 PM
Subject: Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

Hmm I would have loved to hook my M100 up to a monitor. Is there a modern 
equivalent.

Sent from my iPad

> On 24 Jul 2018, at 9:06 pm, Gregory McGill  wrote:
> 
> Pretty rare my buddy that worked at rs says he only sold a couple the entire 
> time he was there
> 
>> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 12:26 PM  wrote:
>> Oh! Well I've owned my M100 for years now and I had never seen the DVI. Are 
>> these rare? What advantages does this give over a stock M100 with a floppy 
>> drive? I gave a REX in mine, worth its weight in gold!
>> 
>> Thanks for the replies guys, I still ashamed I didn't know what DVI was.
>> 
>> Are these rare? Do many on the group have them? 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>> On 24 Jul 2018, at 8:12 pm, Kurt McCullum  wrote:
>>> 
>>> DVI = Disk Video Interface. It expanded the 100 or 200 with a 180k 5.25" 
>>> disk drive and an external monitor. Attaches to the system bus and has it's 
>>> own DOS.
>>> 
>>> Kurt
>>> 
>>> 
 On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, at 12:07 PM, james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
 Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than it 
 being a firm video output.
 
 What is DVI in relation to the M100?
>>> 

Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

[james . zeun]

Hmm I would have loved to hook my M100 up to a monitor. Is there a modern 
equivalent.

Sent from my iPad

> On 24 Jul 2018, at 9:06 pm, Gregory McGill  wrote:
> 
> Pretty rare my buddy that worked at rs says he only sold a couple the entire 
> time he was there
> 
>> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 12:26 PM  wrote:
>> Oh! Well I've owned my M100 for years now and I had never seen the DVI. Are 
>> these rare? What advantages does this give over a stock M100 with a floppy 
>> drive? I gave a REX in mine, worth its weight in gold!
>> 
>> Thanks for the replies guys, I still ashamed I didn't know what DVI was.
>> 
>> Are these rare? Do many on the group have them? 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>> On 24 Jul 2018, at 8:12 pm, Kurt McCullum  wrote:
>>> 
>>> DVI = Disk Video Interface. It expanded the 100 or 200 with a 180k 5.25" 
>>> disk drive and an external monitor. Attaches to the system bus and has it's 
>>> own DOS.
>>> 
>>> Kurt
>>> 
>>> 
 On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, at 12:07 PM, james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
 Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than it 
 being a firm video output.
 
 What is DVI in relation to the M100?
>>> 

Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

[Gregory McGill]

Pretty rare my buddy that worked at rs says he only sold a couple the
entire time he was there

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 12:26 PM  wrote:

> Oh! Well I've owned my M100 for years now and I had never seen the DVI.
> Are these rare? What advantages does this give over a stock M100 with a
> floppy drive? I gave a REX in mine, worth its weight in gold!
>
> Thanks for the replies guys, I still ashamed I didn't know what DVI was.
>
> Are these rare? Do many on the group have them?
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 24 Jul 2018, at 8:12 pm, Kurt McCullum  wrote:
>
> DVI = Disk Video Interface. It expanded the 100 or 200 with a 180k 5.25"
> disk drive and an external monitor. Attaches to the system bus and has it's
> own DOS.
>
> Kurt
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, at 12:07 PM, james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than it
> being a firm video output.
>
> What is DVI in relation to the M100?
>
>
>

Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

[Tom Dison]

Don't forget the Video part. Many moons ago I had a DVI with a model 100
and a monochrome monitor. Suddenly you had 80-column text. Combined with
the extra storage of a floppy I felt like I was in heaven.

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 2:26 PM  wrote:

> Oh! Well I've owned my M100 for years now and I had never seen the DVI.
> Are these rare? What advantages does this give over a stock M100 with a
> floppy drive? I gave a REX in mine, worth its weight in gold!
>
> Thanks for the replies guys, I still ashamed I didn't know what DVI was.
>
> Are these rare? Do many on the group have them?
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 24 Jul 2018, at 8:12 pm, Kurt McCullum  wrote:
>
> DVI = Disk Video Interface. It expanded the 100 or 200 with a 180k 5.25"
> disk drive and an external monitor. Attaches to the system bus and has it's
> own DOS.
>
> Kurt
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, at 12:07 PM, james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than it
> being a firm video output.
>
> What is DVI in relation to the M100?
>
>
>

Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

[james . zeun]

Oh! Well I've owned my M100 for years now and I had never seen the DVI. Are 
these rare? What advantages does this give over a stock M100 with a floppy 
drive? I gave a REX in mine, worth its weight in gold!

Thanks for the replies guys, I still ashamed I didn't know what DVI was.

Are these rare? Do many on the group have them? 



Sent from my iPad

> On 24 Jul 2018, at 8:12 pm, Kurt McCullum  wrote:
> 
> DVI = Disk Video Interface. It expanded the 100 or 200 with a 180k 5.25" disk 
> drive and an external monitor. Attaches to the system bus and has it's own 
> DOS.
> 
> Kurt
> 
> 
>> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, at 12:07 PM, james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
>> Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than it 
>> being a firm video output.
>> 
>> What is DVI in relation to the M100?
> 

Re: [M100] Ask a silly question

[Kurt McCullum]

DVI = Disk Video Interface. It expanded the 100 or 200 with a 180k 5.25"
disk drive and an external monitor. Attaches to the system bus and has
it's own DOS.
Kurt


On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, at 12:07 PM, james.z...@gmail.com wrote:
> Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than
> it being a firm video output.> 
> What is DVI in relation to the M100?

Re: [M100] DVI

[Gregory McGill]

Thanks Brian!


On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 11:43 AM Brian White  wrote:

> The simplest is for someone else with a working dvi and disk to mail you a
> working copy, and then you immediately make yourself several copies and
> stop using your original and a couple of your new copies.
>
> Send me an address and I'll mail you a couple copies.
>
> It IS possible to create dvi disks with other drives and OS's, but by now
> it's hardly any simpler, since the components are only a little easier to
> get than a dvi. You need a 360K drive (not 1.2M) and an old motherboard
> that has an old floppy controller chip. I don't remember what exactly you
> need to look for to recognize a floppy controller that will work, just that
> it's no current ones. If you have a 486 or earlier motherboard and a 360k
> drive (not 1.2M), and some DS/DD disks (not HD!) you could try using the
> teledisk images Steven Adolph (or is it Kurt MCullum?) has up on club100
> user files area. You'd have to find a copy of teledisk too I guess, and
> ms-dos or freedos.
>
> But I don't mind just mailing out a copy since I have a working dvi handy
> at the moment to create and test the copy.
>
> --
> bkw
>
> On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 1:48 AM Gregory McGill 
> wrote:
>
>> I got mine today works good so far but no disk. What are my options?
>>
>> Greg
>>
>

[M100] Ask a silly question

[james . zeun]

Perhaps I missed the memo, but I'm not familiar with DVI. Other than it being a 
firm video output.

What is DVI in relation to the M100?

Re: [M100] DVI

[Brian White]

The simplest is for someone else with a working dvi and disk to mail you a
working copy, and then you immediately make yourself several copies and
stop using your original and a couple of your new copies.

Send me an address and I'll mail you a couple copies.

It IS possible to create dvi disks with other drives and OS's, but by now
it's hardly any simpler, since the components are only a little easier to
get than a dvi. You need a 360K drive (not 1.2M) and an old motherboard
that has an old floppy controller chip. I don't remember what exactly you
need to look for to recognize a floppy controller that will work, just that
it's no current ones. If you have a 486 or earlier motherboard and a 360k
drive (not 1.2M), and some DS/DD disks (not HD!) you could try using the
teledisk images Steven Adolph (or is it Kurt MCullum?) has up on club100
user files area. You'd have to find a copy of teledisk too I guess, and
ms-dos or freedos.

But I don't mind just mailing out a copy since I have a working dvi handy
at the moment to create and test the copy.

-- 
bkw

On Tue, Jul 24, 2018, 1:48 AM Gregory McGill 
wrote:

> I got mine today works good so far but no disk. What are my options?
>
> Greg
>

Re: [M100] GOTEK USB Floppy Emulator vs DVI

[Lee Olivares]

5.25" floppy salvaging? Sounds like a job for FC5025
!

Read only, uses a standard 5.25" mechanism, much cheaper than kryoflux and
more than sufficient if you're reading "normal" (not copy protected)
floppies in most any common format.

Since the DVI uses 5.25", if there's interest I can talk to the guy about
support, assuming it doesn't use the same Tandy format, I assume it does
not.


 - Lee
 - 909.437.0250
 - Destroying technology problems.

On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 5:26 PM, Bert Put  wrote:

> Hi Lee,
>
> I bought one of these a few years ago now for my Kaypro 2X and managed to
> salvage a bunch of floppies with it.  Very happy with it so far although
> file transfer gets clunky due to having to run the HXE files through a
> converter to get IMG files that I can directly manipulate.
>
> Cheers, Bert
>
>
>
>  Original message 
> From: Lee Olivares 
> Date: 7/23/18 16:09 (GMT-06:00)
> To: m...@bitchin100.com
> Subject: Re: [M100] GOTEK USB Floppy Emulator vs DVI
>
> I use flashfloppy.. has more features and is opensource the oled screens
> are way better than the lcd
>
> Good tip! I didn’t realize there was an OSS firmware replacement for the
> GoTek these days, awesome, OLED FTW!
>
> Damn I paid too much for those mini LCDs and never bothered to install one
> anyway, such is life. :P
>
> - Lee
>
> On Jul 23, 2018, at 13:52, Gregory McGill  wrote:
>
> Lee, I use flashfloppy.. has more features and is opensource the oled
> screens are way better than the lcd
>
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 1:30 PM Lee Olivares  wrote:
>
>> Hey a GoTek, I know those things.
>>
>> There is a powerful (commercial) replacement firmware for those gadgets,
>> HxC2001 has some extra features, LCD and buzzer support (for disk index and
>> artificial drive access sounds).
>>
>> http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> - Lee Olivares
>> - (909) 437-0250
>> - The Future or Bust.
>>
>> On Jul 23, 2018, at 13:07, Greg Swallow  wrote:
>>
>> Yes, they are 1.44 (diskettes and drive) formatted to 180k as the
>> original 5.25" drives.
>> I had to use drives with drive select jumpers and set drive 0 and 1 on
>> each drive. I
>> created the original boot diskette with a PC and then made others using
>> the DVI.
>>
>> There is switching that can be done using the M100 cassette port to
>> control side switch,
>> but that has too much risk to the DVI for my taste. I'd rather try the
>> emulator before
>> hacking the DVI to swap sides on a diskette. Only hacking I might try on
>> the DVI is a
>> new ROM to allow SSDD. DS is certainly out of the question, but maybe
>> some other features
>> could be added via a new ROM; e.g. CP/M?
>>
>> - Original Message -
>> From: "Brian White" 
>> To: m...@bitchin100.com
>> Sent: Monday, July 23, 2018 12:41:41 PM
>> Subject: Re: [M100] GOTEK USB Floppy Emulator vs DVI
>>
>> You made a copy of the dvi system disk on 3.5" ?
>> You somehow got a dvi and dvi-dos to use more than 180K per disk side?
>> Or is the dvi just creating bizarrely formatted 3.5" disks that only use
>> the first 40 tracks, or double-spaced evey other track, or something ?
>> It's really using HD disks? (1.44M instead of DD 720K)
>>
>> I guess a 3.5" DD disk (ie: 720K, not HD 1.44M), a single side of that
>> would be 360K on 80 tracks, and 40 tracks of that would be 180K, which
>> would be the same as the original single-sided DD 40-track 5.25" drive &
>> disk. And I think 3.5" always runs at 300 rpm whether HD or DD, same as
>> 5.25" DD (5.25" HD 1.2M runs at 360rpm), so I guess dvi dos and the
>> controller chip & firmware in the dvi could
>> do it that way.
>>
>