24 Feb
1999
24 Feb
'99
4:24 p.m.
I was feeling nostalgic tonight, so I went out to the loft in the shop
and dug around and found an old TI Silent 700 portable terminal that I
picked up somewhere along the way.
It needed a little bit of work...the paper-advance stepper had seized
up, but a little TLC there got it happy again, and the solenoid that
pulls the thermal printhead away from the paper when the paper advances
was way out of adjustment. After tinkering with it for a while, I
powered it up, and it seems to work great.
The machine is a "Model 745 Portable" with built-in acoustic coupler
cups at the rear of the machine. It works at 300 or 110 baud.
I actually dug out an old Western Electric phone (most of the new
telephones today have handsets that won't fit into an acoustic coupler
cup) and dialed up my Sun Unix system (which has a couple of 28.8 modems
hanging off it), and stuffed the phone handset into the cups, and viola...
a (upper case only) LOGIN: prompt! Heck, there was even a termcap for it!
The terminal works great...I loaded up the PDP-11 simulator, and loaded
the image for RT-11, and played around for a while. It brought back
some memories, no doubt! The acoustic coupler worked fantastic...no
glitches, except when the dog barked at a noise outside...and I got a few
@'s printed.
The first question for y'all is this: On the rear panel of the machine is
a DB-15 male connector...my assumption this is for hooking up a (RS232 or
current-loop) 'direct connection' to the terminal. I don't have any
documentation
for the machine, and am wondering if anyone out there might know the pinout
for this connector.
The next question is: Anyone know where I could find the thermal paper for
this
thing? I've got a good sized roll of it in the machine, and a spare roll
still
in the wrapper, but my guess is that as time goes on, it's only going to
become
more and more difficult to find. Anyone know if thermal FAX machine paper
in
roll form would work?
Happy retrocomputing,
Rick Bensene
The Old Calculators Web Pages
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7510
24 Feb
24 Feb
4:49 p.m.
At 10:24 PM 2/24/99 -0800, you wrote:
..snip
>The next question is: Anyone know where I
could find the thermal paper for
>this
>thing? I've got a good sized roll of it in the machine, and a spare roll
>still
>in the wrapper, but my guess is that as time goes on, it's only going to
>become
>more and more difficult to find. Anyone know if thermal FAX machine paper
>in
>roll form would work?
I use ordinary fax thermal paper in mine - buy it six rolls at a time
at Costco. Probably prints a little "light" owing to the ligher weight
of the paper from that supplied by TI (I have ONE genuine roll from TI
which I am keeping for posterity...) But the printing is quite readable.
>Happy retrocomputing,
>Rick Bensene
>The Old Calculators Web Pages
>http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7510
Gary
I was feeling nostalgic tonight, so I went out to the
loft in the shop
and dug around and found an old TI Silent 700 portable terminal that I
picked up somewhere along the way.
It needed a little bit of work...the paper-advance stepper had seized
up, but a little TLC there got it happy again, and the solenoid that
pulls the thermal printhead away from the paper when the paper advances
was way out of adjustment. After tinkering with it for a while, I
powered it up, and it seems to work great.
The machine is a "Model 745 Portable" with built-in acoustic coupler
cups at the rear of the machine. It works at 300 or 110 baud.
Wonderful little units. I have two - one with RS232 only connections
and one that has an RJ-11 jack for direct connection. One has a
defected print head - missing one of the dots (I've looked at it under
a microscope and it looks like it was blown explosively - probably a
bad driver - which I haven't fixed.
5:30 p.m.
Rick Bensene wrote:
The machine is a "Model 745 Portable" with built-in acoustic coupler
cups at the rear of the machine. It works at 300 or 110 baud.
The first question for y'all is this: On the rear
panel of the machine is
a DB-15 male connector...my assumption this is for hooking up a (RS232 or
current-loop) 'direct connection' to the terminal. I don't have any
documentation
for the machine, and am wondering if anyone out there might know the pinout
for this connector.
According to the tech manual, it sounds like the port is the EIA/Auxiliary
Coupler and the cable has one 15 pin connector attaching to the 745, and two
other cables.
(Keyboard/Printer EIA Interface)
P1-9 ..... P2-1 Protective Ground
P1-13 ..... P2-2 Transmit Data
P1-12 ..... P2-3 Receive Data
P1-10 ..... P2-4 +12v to RTS
P1-1 ..... P2-7 Signal ground
P1-11 ..... P2-8 Data Carrier Detect
P1-15 ..... P2-20 Data Terminal Ready
(Acoustic Coupler EIA Interface)
P1-8 ..... P3-3 Receive Data
P1-3 ..... P3-2 Transmit Data
P1-1 ..... P3-7 Signal Ground
P1-2 ..... P3-8 Carrier Detect
P1-9 ..... P3-1 Protective Ground
P1-6 ..... P3-5 Clear to Send
P1-7 ..... P3-6 Data Set Ready
Hope this helps.
25 Feb
25 Feb
3:42 a.m.
I used to have a 745 about 20 years ago. I eventually gave it to
somebody who needed it more than I.
There was a jumper inside that controlled whether the modem and terminal
sections were connected to each other. By setting that, (I do not
remember which jumper) I was then able to cable the terminal to operate
as a printer for a TRS-80, as well as using the modem for the TRS-80. By
making up a special loop-back cable (in the connector hood), it was still
possible to use the modem and terminal with each other.
Be aware that there are a number of variant models, with differing features.
--
Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com
XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com
2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366
Berkeley, CA 94710-2219
On Wed, 24 Feb 1999, Marvin wrote:
Rick Bensene wrote:
The machine is a "Model 745 Portable" with built-in acoustic coupler
cups at the rear of the machine. It works at 300 or 110 baud.
The first question for y'all is this: On the
rear panel of the machine is
a DB-15 male connector...my assumption this is for hooking up a (RS232 or
current-loop) 'direct connection' to the terminal. I don't have any
documentation
for the machine, and am wondering if anyone out there might know the pinout
for this connector.
According to the tech manual, it sounds like the port is the EIA/Auxiliary
Coupler and the cable has one 15 pin connector attaching to the 745, and two
other cables.
(Keyboard/Printer EIA Interface)
P1-9 ..... P2-1 Protective Ground
P1-13 ..... P2-2 Transmit Data
P1-12 ..... P2-3 Receive Data
P1-10 ..... P2-4 +12v to RTS
P1-1 ..... P2-7 Signal ground
P1-11 ..... P2-8 Data Carrier Detect
P1-15 ..... P2-20 Data Terminal Ready
(Acoustic Coupler EIA Interface)
P1-8 ..... P3-3 Receive Data
P1-3 ..... P3-2 Transmit Data
P1-1 ..... P3-7 Signal Ground
P1-2 ..... P3-8 Carrier Detect
P1-9 ..... P3-1 Protective Ground
P1-6 ..... P3-5 Clear to Send
P1-7 ..... P3-6 Data Set Ready
Hope this helps. 
1 Mar
1 Mar
5:37 a.m.
The next question is: Anyone know where I could find
the thermal paper for
this
thing? I've got a good sized roll of it in the machine, and a spare roll
still
in the wrapper, but my guess is that as time goes on, it's only going to
become
more and more difficult to find. Anyone know if thermal FAX machine paper
in
roll form would work?
Fax paper works well on the 700's Maybe you have to take
some meters off until the roll fits. I've done the same
with mine.
Servus
Hans
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
9380
days inactive
9384
days old
4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
go＠ao.com -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
marvin＠rain.org -
rickb＠pail.enginet.com