DVI, IDE, and general CoCo madness

;-) jpero(a)cgo.wave.ca head-scratched, yawned, then typed: Thanks -- I've lurked thru a lot of piracy flame wars on other newsgroups and listservers and learned a lot -- once I dug thru the egos and low blows many of these folks resort to to get their point across. First: The DVI stands for a Disk-Video interface for a Tandy non-MS-DOS laptop (you know - the good ones! :-) which enables you to use up to 2 40track SSDD floppies storing 184K and the use of a monochrome 80x25 monitor w/VT-100 compatibility. (Don't remember for sure on the VT-100 -- if not, I do know that it's VT-52 compatible because the built-in LCD's are mostly VT-52 compatible already.) Second: having been a candlemaker for the last 7 years experience tells me that most alcohols (including ethanol, methanol, and isopropyl) don't dissolve wax very well. The only thing I've found to dissolve wax easily is called Naptha -- one of the main components of dry-cleaning fluid & lighter fluid (you know, for the Zippos) and can be had at your local hardware store -- I paid $2.99 for a quart I believe. Also, I've found Amway's LOC (stands for Liquid Organic Cleaner) cleans up crayons better than most cleaners, tho it's still not a complete solution for crayons & candles. The only reason the Apple /// monitor isn't back in tip-top shape yet, is that I don't have a bootable disk or cable for my DVI to hook to my Tandy 200 -- so at present it's not usable (Tho I still use my 200 all the time!). When I complete my docking station setup for my laptop, I'll put some time into the monitor and get 'er working good again. Oh, and what have I been doing today? I've just refurbished a keyboard on an old CoCo 1 that I bought at an auction several years ago and haven't had a chance to get to -- looked like cheese sauce was blurped onto the keyboard (blech). Also upgraded it from 4K (original) to 64K (yes, both memory pages work -- the original CoCo1's could only handle 32K without a few extra wires added.) Reseated all the chips, burned an Extended ROM and am getting ready to set it up in my bedroom and hook up my Plug-n-Power controller to it so I can control a lot of stuff around the house (better & cheaper than IBM's solution!). Oh, I took pictures during the disassembly and will be scanning them in and writing an article on CoCo keyboard remanufacture which hopefully will be posted in 3 areas: my web page, a CoCo/MM1 magazine called _the world of 68' micros_ that Frank Swygert at Farna Systems publishes, and also in the GCCC (that's Glenside Color Computer Club -- they're still active!) newsletter. Oh, and if anyone's interested in an IDE interface for their CoCo, I'd get a hold of Carl Boll (<root(a)CHICOCO.CHI.IL.US>) real quick -- they have the prototype working well now and are ready to finalize the OS-9 drivers & whatnot - then they're ordering the boards made. There will only be one run of boards, so once they're gone, they're gone. Looks like 125 or so will be made, but if you contact him soon (and there'll be a $15 deposit per board) he'll add you in before time runs out. Well, there's been too many "Oh,"'s already, so I'll end this message before it becomes a novel. Hope this helps, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed, Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should *not* zmerch(a)northernway.net | be your first career choice.