14 Oct
2007
14 Oct
'07
8:05 p.m.
---------------Original Message:
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 12:29:40 -0600
From: "e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com>
Subject: Re: Taken: AT 286 motherboard with mathco
M H Stein wrote:
I wasn't talking about repainting the case.
Date: Sun, 14
Oct 2007 08:53:06 -0600
From: "e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com>
Subject: Re: Taken: AT 286 motherboard with mathco
I think people worked/played more with the
computer more back then.
Meaning wrote utilities, improved stuff, changed something, and were
proud if it.
Really??? Have you browsed the Internet lately and seen the amount of
software & mods out there, and the just wild and crazy things that people
are doing with their PCs? Seems to me there are a heck of a lot *more*
people writing utilities, improving stuff etc. today, and far more complex
and sophisticated stuff at that (especially since there's so much more
room for improvement ;-).
I really don't think so. Go on this modding groups, and check, how much
background info they really have. They just take a motherboard, put a
water cooler on it and wait until it falls apart by over clocking it.
I was talking about people crawling into their computers with an
soldering iron without hurting themselfes ;-)
Cheers
-------------Reply:
I wasn't talking about painting cases or water cooling either, although if you
include the esthetics of the computer even that would count for something;
a really snazzy custom paint job and custom case can be just as much
of an accomplishment as building a serial card for your Apple.
Admittedly it's not practical or possible any longer to make any useful mods
to a modern motherboard itself, but you were talking about "writing utilities,
improving stuff and changing things;" sounds like that wouldn't necessarily
involve a soldering iron (aside from the fact that today you'd use a heat gun),
but *would* include the vast amount of open-source stuff out there and all that
other software written by folks just for the fun of doing it, far more and often
much better quality than a lot of the stuff of the "good old days." As a matter
of fact I'd say that even most people just using Linux would probably qualify.
And then there's the fact that what took many nights of soldering ICs, caps
and resistors back then is now a matter of programming an FPGA or any of
the modern replacements for discrete logic; because of the way the hardware
has evolved into mass-market appliances that activity has also evolved into
different methods and directions. Just because it's done with a pencil and
keyboard instead of a soldering iron doesn't mean it doesn't have the
same essential quality.
But even on the hardware side there's a lot going on; folks are adding
LCD displays & controllers and building MP3 players for their car,
controlling their telescopes with computer-driven steppers etc. etc.;
all sorts of robotics and other computer-related custom hardware that
wasn't even possible back then
And how about the people on this list and numerous other lists like it where
people, many of whom weren't born when these things were new, are
building things like custom disk interfaces, memory expanders, etc. etc.
for C64s (not to mention the single-chip C64 itself), PETs, Apples,
Tandys and all the other old computers, writing emulators, etc. etc.?
Don't we/they count?
You won't convince me that there isn't far more activity in this area today
than there was then, in part just because it's so much more affordable and
mainstream world-wide; how many people in Russia, China or India were
playing with computers in the 70s? Even if only .00001% ever take the
cover off their computer, that's still a lot of additional tinkerers.
As for the dearth of technical magazines like the old Byte, Kilobaud etc.,
the same kind of ideas, projects and articles are still out there, only now
they're to be found on the internet for free and in a much more convenient
form.
'nuff said,
mike
14 Oct
14 Oct
10:04 p.m.
M H Stein wrote:
---------------Original Message:
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 12:29:40 -0600
From: "e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com>
Subject: Re: Taken: AT 286 motherboard with mathco
M H Stein wrote:
I wasn't talking about repainting the case.
Half this list[1] is trying to find thier way out ...
You are in a twistly little tape drive ... passages are east, south and up.
[2]
As for the dearth of technical magazines like the old Byte, Kilobaud etc.,
Date:
Sun, 14 Oct 2007 08:53:06 -0600
From: "e.stiebler" <emu at e-bbes.com>
Subject: Re: Taken: AT 286 motherboard with mathco
I think people worked/played more with the computer more back then.
Meaning wrote utilities, improved stuff, changed something, and were
proud if it.
Really??? Have you browsed the Internet lately and seen the amount
of
software & mods out there, and the just wild and crazy things that people
are doing with their PCs? Seems to me there are a heck of a lot *more*
people writing utilities, improving stuff etc. today, and far more complex
and sophisticated stuff at that (especially since there's so much more
room for improvement ;-).
I really don't think so. Go on this modding groups, and check, how much
background info they really have. They just take a motherboard, put a
water cooler on it and wait until it falls apart by over clocking it.
I was talking about people crawling into their computers with an
soldering iron without hurting themselfes ;-) the same kind of ideas, projects and articles are
still out there, only now
they're to be found on the internet for free and in a much more convenient
form.
Where? DIY audio, 6502's and PIC's I can find. Real projects I
can't.[3]
'nuff said,
mike
Ben.
[1] the other half are the chinese take out deivery people.
[2] They are lost some where inside the front door.
[3] Something other than blinking a led.
16 Oct
16 Oct
11:57 a.m.
Rumor has it that M H Stein may have mentioned these words:
You won't convince me that there isn't far more
activity in this area today
than there was then, in part just because it's so much more affordable and
mainstream world-wide; how many people in Russia, China or India were
playing with computers in the 70s? Even if only .00001% ever take the
cover off their computer, that's still a lot of additional tinkerers.
When anyone starts out with "You won't convince me..." and you don't
have
_hard numbers_ then it doesn't matter who has what facts...
... but for that matter, I'd disagree with you anyway... for the simple
fact that you're looking at *sheer numbers.* I'd look at it as a per-capita
number: The number of people who dug deep into their computers as a ratio
of the total number of people who actually had computers (say... 20 years
ago) IMHO would be higher than today. There might be more projects overall,
but the number of projects in comparison to the number of people who just
use their computers as toasters as a ratio is lower.
But as you're not convinced for anything for any reason, it would be
pointless for me to tell you about it. ;-)
Which just goes to show that Mark Twain wasn't just right... but was /damn
right/ when he said this: "There are 3 kinds of lies in this world: lies,
damn lies, and statistics." ;-)
I will say this: There's a lot less "mainstream computer" hacking now than
then. As in: When Tandy CoCos/Commie64's/Apple]['s/etc. were mainstream,
there was a lot more hacking then for them than there is for hardware
Pentium4/Athlon/etc. stuff now. A lot of the hacking that goes on nowadays
is for routers (look at what you can hook up to a WRT54Gxx series router),
CPLD/FPGA's, and now older computers. For the CoCo alone, there's VGA and
SVideo upconverters, CompactFlash & IDE interfaces, etc...
Today's computers (beyond overclocking... pffft.... that's not hacking)
just aren't that hackable.
Just my $0.000000002 worth.
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch at 30below.com
What do you do when Life gives you lemons,
and you don't *like* lemonade?????????????
17 Oct
17 Oct
7:32 a.m.
Roger Merchberger wrote:
Today's computers (beyond overclocking...
pffft.... that's not hacking)
just aren't that hackable.
You're conveniently forgetting that most of the hacking done on
8-bitters was to overclock them. That, or expand their I/O options...
which is already built-in to modern machines. So what kind of "hacking"
would you like to perform on modern machines that you cannot, but *can*
on 8-bitters?
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
8:39 a.m.
Rumor has it that Jim Leonard may have mentioned these words:
Roger Merchberger wrote:
Maybe in your circles, certainly not mine. With most of the machines I used
the system clock was tied to the main color burst freq. crystal,
"overclocking" meant "no video" and when was the last time you'd
seen a
paper tape reader or teletypewriter hooked up to a CoCo3? ;-)
No, most of the hacking done that I knew about was adding more storage
(RAM/Magnetic/etc.) than the computer was originally designed to handle...
256K in a CoCo1/2, 1 or 2 Meg in a CoCo3, ditching the 160K drives and
going to DSDD or DSQD drives, hard drives, etc.
Today's computers (beyond overclocking...
pffft.... that's not hacking)
just aren't that hackable.
You're conveniently forgetting that most of the hacking done on 8-bitters
was to overclock them. That, or expand their I/O options... which is already
built-in to modern
machines. So what kind of "hacking" would you like to perform on modern
machines that you cannot, but *can* on 8-bitters?
Offtopically, show me an Intel 810 chipset motherboard that can take more
than 512Meg RAM. If you can, it was _modified_ to do it, and I'd like to
meet the individual that hacked it in. ;-)
However, you are right about the expanded I/O: I was about to say "Add an
A/D converter" but then I remembered the audio in on a PC sound card. Done.
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Bugs of a feather flock together."
sysadmin, Iceberg Computers | Russell Nelson
zmerch at 30below.com |
5:07 p.m.
"overclocking" meant "no video"
and when was the last time you'd seen a
paper tape reader or teletypewriter hooked up to a CoCo3? ;-)
When I rotate my heand left by about $\pi$/6 radians :-)
I built a paper tape interface catridge for the CoCos. Links to a Trend
reader and a Facit 4070 punch. It's not currenyly cabled up, but it
certainly could be again.
Amd as for a teletype, when I built by tripple serial port for the CoCo
(what's the point of OS-9 without serial ports ;-)), I specifically
included a 1760Hz clock so I could us an ASR33 with it.
However, you are right about the expanded I/O: I was
about to say "Add an
A/D converter" but then I remembered the audio in on a PC sound card. Done.
Hmm.. I wasn't aware that the response of most soundcards went down to
DC. A lot of the things I use an ADC for are very slowly changing signals.
And how many PCs have a 'user port'? That's one thing I would certainly
want to hack in somehow.
-tony
6:55 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
And how many PCs have a 'user port'?
That's one thing I would certainly
want to hack in somehow.
What is a "user port"?
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
18 Oct
18 Oct
2:17 a.m.
Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> writes:
I would assume something similar to the geek port on
the BeBox.
Yes -- lots of Acorn machines in the UK had "user ports" with a bunch
of general-purpose IO pins. Very useful for interfacing random
external hardware to the computer (such as a model railway, a
shortwave radio and my hamster's wheel, in my case).
--
Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org> <http://offog.org/>
12:48 p.m.
Yes -- lots of Acorn machines in the UK had "user
ports" with a bunch
of general-purpose IO pins. Very useful for interfacing random
external hardware to the computer (such as a model railway, a
shortwave radio and my hamster's wheel, in my case).
The first 2 I can understand (although there are many different ways to
control model railways...). But please explain the last. Was it an input
or an output device, for example?
-tony
3:43 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Hamster wheel's are know to power many
things, this case the Vcc
for the port.
shortwave
radio and my hamster's wheel, in my case).
The first 2 I can understand (although there are many different ways to
control model railways...). But please explain the last. Was it an input
or an output device, for example? -tony
Ben.
PS: I suspect input ... count RPM of something like that.
PSS I am sending this post 4:41PM Mountain standard time.
I got this bunch of posts only a few miniutes ago... stamped
1:48PM.
19 Oct
19 Oct
1:31 a.m.
ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) writes:
The first 2 I can understand (although there are many
different ways to
control model railways...). But please explain the last. Was it an input
or an output device, for example?
An input -- an LDR detected a reflective spot on the wheel as it went
past, giving me a readout of how fast and far the hamster ran in an
evening. (His top speed wasn't anything to write home about, but he
managed some impressive distances; a few kilometers in an evening...)
--
Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org> <http://offog.org/>
17 Oct
17 Oct
8:53 p.m.
Jim Leonard wrote:
Tony Duell wrote:
Well that would imply that you have a user
wanting
to have the do something other than "install todays OS game".
And how many PCs have a 'user port'?
That's one thing I would
certainly want to hack in somehow.
What is a "user port"?
18 Oct
18 Oct
12:34 a.m.
woodelf wrote:
> Jim Leonard wrote:
> What is a "user port"?
Sridhar wrote:
I would assume something similar to the geek port on the BeBox.
woodelf wrote:
Well that would imply that you have a user wanting
to have the do something other than "install todays OS game".
Neither of those responses answer the question. Tony: What is a "user
port" as you originally referred to it, and what was it used for?
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
2:23 a.m.
On 18/10/2007 08:34, Jim Leonard wrote:
woodelf wrote:
Tony actually did say what it was. He was referring to a BBC
Microcomputer, the user port on which is port B of a 2MHz 6522A VIA,
unbuffered. The signals CB1, CB2, and PB0...PB7 are brought out to the
even-numbered pins 2...20 of a 20-pin IDC header; pins 1 and 3 are
connected to the +5V supply and the rest of the pins are ground. The
timers and shift register etc in the same 6522A are also available for
user applications. Port A is buffered and used for the parallel printer
port, brought out to a 26-way header, and there's another 6522A which is
used for assorted internal I/O -- it interfaces to things like the
keyboard, the speech system, and the sound generator.
The user port was typically used for home-grown digital I/O, but some
commercial hardware used it too, eg at least one mouse, some satellite
hardware, a turtle, a robot arm, and a CNC lathe controller. I used it
to interface to a PCB tester I made to test some circuit boards I made.
Analogue input was handled by the logically-named Analogue Port, which
had a 4-channel 12-bit (but the Vref was only accurate to about 10 bits)
ADC and a few bits of digital input, so this was often used for a pair
of two-axis joysticks and their fire buttons, and for a 3D joystick for
CAD, called a BitStik.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
> Jim Leonard wrote:
> What is a "user port"?
Sridhar wrote:
I would assume something similar to the geek port on the BeBox.
woodelf wrote:
Well that would imply that you have a user wanting
to have the do something other than "install todays OS game".
Neither of those responses answer the question. Tony: What is a "user
port" as you originally referred to it, and what was it used for? 
2:58 a.m.
Pete Turnbull wrote:
The user port was typically used for home-grown
digital I/O, but some
commercial hardware used it too, eg at least one mouse, some satellite
hardware, a turtle, a robot arm, and a CNC lathe controller.
... and the Buggy and trackerball. Somewhere I've got a Grafpad too; I think
that was possibly hooked up to the User port.
I suppose in the PC (as in IBM-compatible) world things tended to get their
own ISA card (if they couldn't be driven via RS-232). IBM really missed a
trick in not making the PC's parallel port bidirectional from the start. :-(
cheers
Jules
12:52 p.m.
I suppose in the PC (as in IBM-compatible) world
things tended to get their
own ISA card (if they couldn't be driven via RS-232). IBM really missed a
trick in not making the PC's parallel port bidirectional from the start. :-(
THey almost did, and then didn't enable it, or document it!. Look at an
original PC printer port card. There are 3 pads at 0.1" spacing, the
middle one of which goes to the OE/ pin of the '374 (data output latch),
onf of the end ones is groud, the other end one is the unused output of
the '174 (control output port). The frist 2 are linked by a trace. Cut
that last trace, solder in a 0.1" pin header and use one of those
well-known jumper links to sleect whether you want a bidirectional port
or not.
This is _not_ shown in the Techred for some unknown reason....
Of coruse it's not as versatile as the BBC user port, which let you set
the driection of each pin individually.
-tony
19 Oct
19 Oct
6:21 p.m.
Pete Turnbull wrote:
The user port was typically used for home-grown
digital I/O, but some
commercial hardware used it too, eg at least one mouse, some satellite
hardware, a turtle, a robot arm, and a CNC lathe controller. I used it
to interface to a PCB tester I made to test some circuit boards I made.
All of these can be hooked up with a serial port, so I'm still wondering
why today's machines are considered lacking for not having a "user port".
--
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org) http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project: http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/
20 Oct
20 Oct
1:18 p.m.
Pete Turnbull wrote:
The _oriignal_ use of the 'user port' was for _users_ to connect their
own gadgets to.
It is a lot easier to connect you hamster wheel/ relay-to-control-lights/
homebrew circuit to an 8-bit parallel port than to a serial port (or
worse a USB port). Yes I know there are microcontrollers with built-in
serial ports, USH interfaces, and whatever. But the thought of having to
write the firmware for the microcontroller, get it debugged, etc, puts
people off. COnnecting a couple of resistors and a transistor together is
an easier introduction to hardware hacking.
-tony
The user port was typically used for home-grown
digital I/O, but some
commercial hardware used it too, eg at least one mouse, some satellite
hardware, a turtle, a robot arm, and a CNC lathe controller. I used it
to interface to a PCB tester I made to test some circuit boards I made.
All of these can be hooked up with a serial port, so I'm still wondering
why today's machines are considered lacking for not having a "user port".
3:13 p.m.
On Oct 20, 2007, at 1:18 PM, Tony Duell wrote:
It is a lot easier to connect you hamster wheel/
relay-to-control-
lights/
homebrew circuit to an 8-bit parallel port than to a serial port (or
worse a USB port). Yes I know there are microcontrollers with built-in
serial ports, USH interfaces, and whatever. But the thought of
having to
write the firmware for the microcontroller, get it debugged, etc, puts
people off. COnnecting a couple of resistors and a transistor
together is
an easier introduction to hardware hacking.
As somebody who got their start hacking the Commodore VIC-20 and the
CBM "user port", I don't find a BASIC Stamp plugged in through a USB
port that significantly different to experiment with, at least from
an ease-of-use perspective.
There's almost as much power in some of the BASIC Stamp products as I
had in the entire VIC-20. A couple of teens I know who are just
starting to "hardware hack" are doing the exact same sorts of
"thermister controlled fan in the window" stuff I was doing on the
VIC-20.. except now they are doing it all outboard. Even with a
small webserver. On a BASIC Stamp, you can have your "thermister"
project done in about an hour, assuming no previous knowledge of even
basic electronics, just following the instructions in the Stamp's
application notes.
When a PIC chip based system that has more CPU power (and in some
cases, even more RAM) than we had in entire computer systems can be
had for $80 at RadioShack with a breadboard, manual, and programming
software.. what do you need to bring it all into the computer for?
When you are finally advanced enough to want to talk to a bigger
computer, you'll have enough of the basic understanding to get the
USB-based stuff working.
21 Oct
21 Oct
6:32 p.m.
It is a lot easier to connect you hamster wheel/
relay-to-control-lights/
homebrew circuit to an 8-bit parallel port than to a serial port (or
worse a USB port). Yes I know there are microcontrollers with built-in
serial ports, USH interfaces, and whatever. But the thought of having to
write the firmware for the microcontroller, get it debugged, etc, puts
people off. COnnecting a couple of resistors and a transistor together is
an easier introduction to hardware hacking.
How to use serial port with bascom:
$crystal 8000000
$baud 9600
main:
Print "Hi Tony, this is an example of using a serial port"
goto main
How to use USB port with bascom and a FT232 module/chip
$crystal 8000000
$baud 9600
main:
Print "Hi Tony, this is an example of using a serial port"
goto main
There is no spoon :o)
20 Oct
20 Oct
7:35 p.m.
On 10/20/07, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote:
All of these can be hooked up with a serial port, so
I'm still wondering
why today's machines are considered lacking for not having a "user port".
All? Well some of the stuff I hook up to machines lately needs
multiple wires, so unless I want to hack a microcontroller to
interpret serial packets into wire-wiggling (and the attendant drop in
response time to serialize the data to begin with), I'm faced with
stuff that won't fit. The LED scoreboard is a good example of that...
it technically has a bus-type interface (D0-D3, A0-A2, R/W, SEL1,
SEL2...). Essentially, one just needs to pick a chip select, a
register address, then read/write a nybble to make it all work. There
are no serial (or USB) interfaces for it.
OTOH, an 11-wire cable to a PC parallel port (being used as a 'user
port', not a printer port), and some very simple software to read and
write the port registers, and it's a fully functioning peripheral.
Can I make a microcontroller to talk to it via serial? Yes. Is it
more work than an 11-wire parallel cable? Absolutely.
-ethan
7:52 p.m.
Uh, guys? I've had the 286 in my hands for almost 2 days now.
It's okay to change the subject line. :)
Cheers,
Chuck
11:55 p.m.
On Sat, 20 Oct 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Uh, guys? I've had the 286 in my hands for almost
2 days now.
It's okay to change the subject line. :)
I'm just giggling over how much this thread diverged from an adoption
request.
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
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?
18 Oct
18 Oct
12:20 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
SOme 8-bit home micros -- the Commodore PETs/VIC20/C64/C128 and the BBC
micro being the obvious examples, had an uncommitted 8 bit parallel I/O
port that was essentially half of a 6522 VIA. The Tatung Einstein had a
similar port that was half of a Z80-PIO. In all cases the external
connector was labelled 'User Port'.
THe idea was to have an port that could be used for simple homebrew
control/sensing applications. You could easilly hook up switches,
transistors-driving-relays and so on.
Very few later machines had them. The Sirius/Victor 9000 did -- a full
6522 on an unmarkerd header inside. The PC printer prot is nowhere near
as versatile IMHO.
-tony
And how many PCs have a 'user port'?
That's one thing I would certainly
want to hack in somehow.
What is a "user port"?
12:26 a.m.
On 10/18/07, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Amd as for a teletype, when I built by tripple serial
port for the CoCo
(what's the point of OS-9 without serial ports ;-)), I specifically
included a 1760Hz clock so I could us an ASR33 with it.
Nice.
And how many PCs have a 'user port'?
That's one thing I would certainly
want to hack in somehow.
That's one of my largest complaints with "modern" laptops - no
traditional ("legacy") parallel port. I have, in the past year,
attached LCD displays, a ladder D-A, MCUs for programming, and a real
Dragon's Lair/Space Ace scoreboard to a PeeCee parallel port. It's
not quite as versatile as the User Port on a PET or a C-64, but I'm
still missing my old (i.e., bought in 2005!) laptop.
I _do_ have some "user port"-ish hardware for ISA, though -
essentially one to three 8255s on either a 2/3-length or full-length
card. A couple of them are just meant to hang external cables out the
back to access the I/O, and another couple are also bread-board cards,
with either grids of 0.1"-spacing holes, or real nylon-block
prototyping strips, with a pre-done circuit area for instruction
decode, latch, off-board DC-37 connector, etc.
I have nothing like it newer than for ISA, unfortunately.
-ethan
9:39 a.m.
On 18 Oct 2007 at 20:26, Ethan Dicks wrote:
I _do_ have some "user port"-ish hardware
for ISA, though -
essentially one to three 8255s on either a 2/3-length or full-length
card. A couple of them are just meant to hang external cables out the
back to access the I/O, and another couple are also bread-board cards,
with either grids of 0.1"-spacing holes, or real nylon-block
prototyping strips, with a pre-done circuit area for instruction
decode, latch, off-board DC-37 connector, etc.
I have nothing like it newer than for ISA, unfortunately.
PCI versions of the same card can be had for not a lot of money
(<USD$100 for a 3-8255 version). But I've looked inside of systems
lately, and there tend not to be too many PCI slots either--aside
from rackmount industrial control units.
Cheers,
Chuck
11:21 a.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 10/18/07, Tony Duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
So, here's a thought. As mentioned by somebody else, even 32-bit PCI
slots are getting thin on the ground in new hardware. The various
"hook-my-old-gear-up-to-my-new-PC" projects seem, for better or worse,
to be centering on USB.
I don't know crap about USB or about ISA, but would it be feasible to
just build a USB-attached ISA expansion board? Would that simpler than
attaching existing serial cards, floppy interfaces, etc., or would it
just further complicate things?
Doc
And how many PCs have a 'user port'?
That's one thing I would certainly
want to hack in somehow.
That's one of my largest complaints with "modern" laptops - no
traditional ("legacy") parallel port. I have, in the past year,
attached LCD displays, a ladder D-A, MCUs for programming, and a real
Dragon's Lair/Space Ace scoreboard to a PeeCee parallel port. It's
not quite as versatile as the User Port on a PET or a C-64, but I'm
still missing my old (i.e., bought in 2005!) laptop.
I _do_ have some "user port"-ish hardware for ISA, though -
essentially one to three 8255s on either a 2/3-length or full-length
card. A couple of them are just meant to hang external cables out the
back to access the I/O, and another couple are also bread-board cards,
with either grids of 0.1"-spacing holes, or real nylon-block
prototyping strips, with a pre-done circuit area for instruction
decode, latch, off-board DC-37 connector, etc.
I have nothing like it newer than for ISA, unfortunately.
12:35 p.m.
On 18 Oct 2007 at 13:21, Doc Shipley wrote:
I don't know crap about USB or about ISA, but
would it be feasible to
just build a USB-attached ISA expansion board? Would that simpler than
attaching existing serial cards, floppy interfaces, etc., or would it
just further complicate things?
I'd think that it all depends on the speed desired. Single-byte
transfer over USB is very slow; the speed doesn't really kick in
until block transfers are being done. Interrupts and DMA might be
accommodated after a fashion, given enough intelligence on the box
end, but I'd just rather use an old ISA-equipped PC myself.
However, if what you're after is a "user port", there are USB-to-
bidirectional parallel port (with FIFO yet) (and serial port)
available very inexpensively.
Cheers,
Chuck
12:35 p.m.
And how many PCs have a 'user port'?
That's one thing I would certainly
want to hack in somehow.
That's one of my largest complaints with "modern" laptops - no
traditional ("legacy") parallel port. I have, in the past year,
attached LCD displays, a ladder D-A, MCUs for programming, and a real
Dragon's Lair/Space Ace scoreboard to a PeeCee parallel port. It's
not quite as versatile as the User Port on a PET or a C-64, but I'm
still missing my old (i.e., bought in 2005!) laptop. I _do_ have some "user port"-ish hardware
for ISA, though -
essentially one to three 8255s on either a 2/3-length or full-length
It's just a pity that the 8255 was the worst parallel port chip ever
designed. I mean, change the direction of any port, and all outputs are
set low (setting them high would be marginally more tolerable!).
-tony
20 Oct
20 Oct
11:55 a.m.
And thusly were the wise words spake by Roger Merchberger
Rumor has it that Jim Leonard may have mentioned these words:
You forgot the SuperCPU for the C64/128. This made the computer run
20 times faster and you still have video. It also gave you 16MB of
available memory...
Cheers,
Bryan
Roger Merchberger wrote:
Maybe in your circles, certainly not mine. With most of the machines I used
the system clock was tied to the main color burst freq. crystal,
"overclocking" meant "no video" and when was the last time you'd
seen a
paper tape reader or teletypewriter hooked up to a CoCo3? ;-)
Today's computers (beyond overclocking...
pffft.... that's not hacking)
just aren't that hackable.
You're conveniently forgetting that most of the hacking done on 8-bitters
was to overclock them.
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