24 Dec
2005
24 Dec
'05
1:08 a.m.
On Friday 23 December 2005 06:10 pm, Tony Duell wrote:
Looking in my archives, I show (in more or less alphabetical order) the
following:
EPOXLINK.LZH Transfer program specific to Osborne Executive (I have one)
EPSLINK.LZH Transfer program for cp/m machine - same UI as FILINK
(That one is assembly source)
FILINK.LZH unix equivalent to EPSLINK
PROMFORM.LZH program & doc file for burning eproms
...and a few others. That "FILINK.LZH" sound like the one you're looking
for?
FWIW, the RS cables are 463-518
Ok, downloading still...
If you want to annoy them, call them 'Radiospares'. They started out
with that name many years ago, but changed their name in 1972 (I think)
to RS components because they wanted to get away from the iamge of only
supplying parts to fix radios. But every old-time engineer and scientist
in the UK will call them 'Radiospares'.
Heh.
I don't think it likely that I'll be dealing with them.
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
Just being
able to get info into and out of that machine would be nice.
Talking of that, is the protocol used by FLINK documented anywhere?
(FLINK is a program in the utilities ROM of both the PX4 and PX8 that
seems to do file transfer over the RS232 port). I've heard rumours for a
version in C for unix machines, but can't seem to find it anywhere. Anyway, the disk emulaotr program I found was called
vfloppy13.tgz. The
archive is vig (about 300K) becuase it includes 3 disk images that you
might need. The linux part of the system is GPLed (no flames, OK...)
Very old Debian.
Slackware here.
<...>
I've
downloaded a disk emulator for linux.
Pretty much what I run here -- which distro do you use? I regard mini-DIN plugs as one of the offspring of
Satan :-).
:-D
I really hate wiring them, and the type you can
wire (as opposed to
moulded ones) are often too large tor fit through the hole in the case
to mate with the socket.
I do believe these will fit, and better yet, they appear to be
Switchcraft. I still don't want to have to wire them, though.
> What I did was buy 3 cables from RS components which had an 8 pin
> mini-DIN plug moulded on one end and bare wires at the other. I might have something around here I can chop...
The PX8 serial port conenctions are pretty sane, actually, and sort-of
follow the RS232 order. I think the pinout is in the user manual (it's
certainly in the the technical manual), as are diagrams for the standard
cables (again, those are certainly in the technical manual. I wired 2 of them to DB25 plugs, so that you got
a DTE pinout on said
plug. And the last one I wired to a DB25 socket with the apporpiate
crosses and interconnections so that when I pluged that one one of the
first type of cable, I got a crossover mini-DIN to mini-DIN cable
which will like 2 PX8s (or PX4s), or link a machine to the PF10.
I can look up the wiring colours used in those RS cables if you like,
they are in the catalogue/on the web site, but I buzzed them out anyway
just to be sure.
Just the pin-to-pin connections would be of great help. Anyway, here are the pins (and the colours of that RS
cable I mentioned)
PX8 pin Signal Colour RS232 Pin
1 Signal Ground Black 7
2 TxD White 2
3 RxD Red 3
4 RTS Yellow 4
5 CTS Purple 5
6 DSR Blue 6
7 DTR Green 20
8 CD Brown 8
The pin numbers are actually the same as on the HX20, which used a
full-sized 8 pin DIN plug. It made a lot of sense on that machine,
because 3 pin, 5 pin (type A) and 7 pin DIN plugs will fit the 8 pin
socket.
Yes, I often used a 5-pin for video when working on c64s, which could have
either that 5-pin or an 8-pin socket.
A 3 pin plug gave yopu Gnd, TxD, RxD, a 5 pin plug
added RTS and
CTS, a 7 pin plug added DSR and DTR, and finally the 8 pin plug added CD.
Every possbile connector gave a useful subset of the signals.
I like that kind of thinking!
[Note for US readers. RS is not Radio Shack. It's
a large UK
distributer of electronic components, tools, materials, etc. Look at
http://www.rswww.com/]
I've heard that before.