Tony Duell wrote: Neither do I. But who knows, if it does exists it might be a proto-type or something. If I knew how to do it, I can probably put it together. Here are pictures of Sundance's STM220 RS232 tram http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/1190/images/s220.jpg http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/1190/images/s220fbw.gif and a little description of it: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/1190/s220.htm For transtech's TTM21, check out the following link: http://www.transtech.com/transpdf/ttm21.pdf Can someone here come up with a circuit diagram to make one???? I certainly can't :-( Ram -- ,,,, /'^'\ ( o o ) -oOOO--(_)--OOOo------------------------------------- | Ram Meenakshisundaram | Senior Software Engineer | OpenLink Financial Inc | .oooO Phone: (516) 227-6600 x267 | ( ) Oooo. Email: rmeenaks(a)olf.com ---\ (----( )-------------------------------------- \_) ) / (_/

Tony Duell wrote: Unfortunately, I have very very little electrical background (almost nothing). I can but circuits together, but that is just about it :-( Hmmm, got to take a look at it. I might have some old product brochures laying around somewhere... Too bad, it would make a perfect GNU-style hardware project. Any takers??? BTW, I am planning on connecting the Lego Mindstorm kit to the transputer so that i can do some cheap robotics off the transputer farm I have. That is why I need an RS232 tram for.... Ram -- ,,,, /'^'\ ( o o ) -oOOO--(_)--OOOo------------------------------------- | Ram Meenakshisundaram | Senior Software Engineer | OpenLink Financial Inc | .oooO Phone: (516) 227-6600 x267 | ( ) Oooo. Email: rmeenaks(a)olf.com ---\ (----( )-------------------------------------- \_) ) / (_/

On Thu, 11 Nov 1999 23:50:39 +0000 (GMT) Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote: This is precisely what we had to do at my previous company. We needed four serial ports on a TRAM, but none of the commercially-available ones were any good. Some were really awful "bit-banging via an 8-bit latch" designs, others had a Z80 CPU and a link adaptor, others would do just 3-wire RS232 with no modem control. We used a quad UART from the RS Components catalogue. You can get 8-way UARTS! I think Philips/Signetics do them. I don't have the circuits any more, but it was really straightforward. Just a T222, the UART, some MAX232s, some SRAM, and glue logic (about four 74xx MSI chips). All went on a size two TRAM fairly easily. -- John Honniball Email: John.Honniball(a)uwe.ac.uk University of the West of England

Rumor has it that Tony Duell may have mentioned these words: Heck, at Jameco you can get the 16550's for $6.95USD qty 1... knock off a buck for qty 10+, and you get the 16-byte FIFO's for better thruput... Thru Digi-Key or Mouser, I think you can get the 16650's (32-byte buffer, isn't that the difference??) but I have no clue for the price. I think it's blackhawk technology is using the 16550's for a new RS232 card for the CoCo that can achieve 115200 reliably... and it has a daughtercard for a second serial port to boot. IIRC, they were $69.95 each. See ya, Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig. If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.

Tony Duell wrote: I really dont have any preference to a serial chip other than that it should be reliable and easy to source. I have no spare T2s either. All the spares I have are the T400 (2-link) transputers. Thanks a lot. It really would be a nice project to do. We currently have no free transputer schematics (especially trams). Ooops, I should take that back, there is the DTC (DSP + Transputer card) card that comes with schematics and is free. Ram -- ,,,, /'^'\ ( o o ) -oOOO--(_)--OOOo------------------------------------- | Ram Meenakshisundaram | Senior Software Engineer | OpenLink Financial Inc | .oooO Phone: (516) 227-6600 x267 | ( ) Oooo. Email: rmeenaks(a)olf.com ---\ (----( )-------------------------------------- \_) ) / (_/

Sure that seems fine. I also realized the T400s would be a mess as it would break the pipeline on a B008. Some extrnal ram would be nice. How about 64K of SRAM. That should be plenty for most work I would think. That would be nice. I dont have any freely releasable transputer card designs. People always ask me where they can get transputer cards, with a design spec, they can build one themselves. Thanks Tony. I really appreciate it. Ram

Tony Duell wrote: I was just looking over Sundance's Serial TRAM and it doesnt even use a transputer. It just uses C011s to handle the links. Wouldnt that be easier??? There would be no need to get any spare transputers (and they are hard to source these days). The SMT220 seems to be a very easy design. As John said, it would be really neat if it can handle modems, etc like a true PC-based serial port... Ram -- ,,,, /'^'\ ( o o ) -oOOO--(_)--OOOo------------------------------------- | Ram Meenakshisundaram | Senior Software Engineer | OpenLink Financial Inc | .oooO Phone: (516) 227-6600 x267 | ( ) Oooo. Email: rmeenaks(a)olf.com ---\ (----( )-------------------------------------- \_) ) / (_/

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The best answer is probably a question, why do you collect Transputer equipment? The main reason I'm collecting Mini's is to be able to play with their Operating Systems. Besides I'm actually getting my OpenVMS cluster set up as a fileserver for my other systems. The hardware is also fun to work with. Some people spend a lot of thier time on the Computer Games, me I find Mini Computers and their OS's to be the ultimate in computer games. Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

Umm, it would appear that a good percentage of us on this list do :^) Of course I've got to admit that in the last couple years I've kind of slacked off to the point that I'm mainly playing with PDP's and OpenVMS boxes. With a Mac and a couple Unix boxes being my primary 'general use' systems. Zane | Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator | | healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast | | healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector | +----------------------------------+----------------------------+ | Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, | | and Zane's Computer Museum. | | http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |

[SNIP] Practical use? Collecting? People who collect stamps don't usually use their stamps to send mail with. People who collect antique cars don't usually use the cars in the collection as daily drivers. Collecting is not usually associated with "Practical Use". You collect because your interested. Exactly how and why your interest lies varies amongst different people. I don't see any difference between collecting minis or collecting hand helds (motivation wise anyway). They pique your interest enough for you to deal with them. George

On Mon, 15 Nov 1999, Ram Meenakshisundaram wrote: Lots of reasons. For one, I never use PC hardware. For anything. My "work" machines at home are all Sun and SGI systems. My "recreational" systems are various types of machines, including so-called "classic" computers. I'm a programmer by trade. I write networking applications in C for Unix machines. Every now & then, I'll fire up a pdp11 with 248kb of RAM and just write fun stuff. With the limitations in performance (for some pdp11 systems anyway, others are quite fast) and memory address space, it really helps me hone my programming skills in the direction of absolute code efficiency. In this day of unlimited RAM and practically unlimited CPU power, too many programmers are lazy and write fat, bloated, slow code. Running some more limited systems (limited in those ways, anyway) helps me keep my programming skills in shape. And the number one most important reason: they're FUN. I LIKE dicking with these systems. They have personality. Not like some crappy plastic three-months-til-obsolescence commercialized whiz-bang PeeCee, but a real, honest, well-designed, well-built computer from the days when proper engineering was the motivating factor in the computer industry...not just maximization of profit and "putting one over" on the customer base. ...well there's no "nice" way to say this, so I apologize in advance for sounding like an asshole. While I realize that compromise is a part of any relationship, I don't think I'd ever be able to spend time with someone who would tell me what hobbies I can or cannot have, or what things I can or cannot own. Perhaps, as a single man, my views are somewhat naive and idealistic, but that's just my opinion. I do apologize if it sounds like I'm slamming your wife...I'm sure she's a wonderful person...but for me, I grew up hacking computers. I'm not giving that up for *anything*...or anyone. Indeed, it's all I have, and it's all I am. -Dave McGuire