16 Sep
2003
16 Sep
'03
4:22 a.m.
Hello All,
I found an unusual handhel pocket terminal.
It's housing is the same as the older LED pocket calculators used by Texas
Intruments,
but is is not the TM990/xxx terminal as used for Texas own PLC's or TMS9900 based
computers.
This one is apparently made by Gr Electronics, who were based in the UK and in the US.
This is based on the fact that is says 'GR 185-2' on the board.
I searched Google, but I couldn't find any info.
As the housing was loose, I opened it, and it uses an Intel 8048 microcontroller, has 8
character and has a curled cable which has a DB25 connector at the end.
The cable has 7 wires, and when the battery door is opened (this device get's it
power
via the cable), a 6 position dip switch is revealed.
There is also a little plastic block which does do some power conversion
(i.e. +5V into + and - 12V)? and a little buzzer. The crystal on the board has a
value of 6.144 (Mhz?).
What I would like to find out is some kind of information/usage/whatever of this
device. It would be great if this device just acts like a plain RS-232 terminal.
Thanks,
Ed
--
16 Sep
16 Sep
5:41 a.m.
Ed wrote:
Hello All,
I found an unusual handhel pocket terminal.
It's housing is the same as the older LED pocket calculators used by Texas
Intruments,
but is is not the TM990/xxx terminal as used for Texas own PLC's or TMS9900 based
computers.
I've seen a number of similar units and I was told these were indeed
handheld terminals for the older network equipment. I have one that
sounds just like yours that was made by Gould, and just picked up one
made by Codex that is similar.
9:22 p.m.
At 06:14 PM 9/16/03 +0200, Ed wrote:
This one is apparently made by Gr Electronics, who were
based in the UK
and in the US.
This is based on the fact that is says 'GR 185-2' on the board.
I searched Google, but I couldn't find any info.
As the housing was loose, I opened it, and it uses an Intel 8048
microcontroller, has 8
character and has a curled cable which has a DB25 connector at the end.
The cable has 7 wires, and when the battery door is opened (this device
get's it power
Sounds like a device that I have seen for doing inventory and stock
checking, db25 could be for a bar code or? Anyway people go up and down the
aisles in markets with them filling in sku and quantity, periodically
docking to download the data into some host.
10:29 p.m.
Mike Ford wrote:
At 06:14 PM 9/16/03 +0200, Ed wrote:
Not likely in this case, 2 of the wires must carry the power, as there is no
own powersource in the terminal. I picked it up when collecting 4 11/34's at Shell,
and in one of the cupboard I found this pocket terminal.
I have opened the db25 plug, and pins 2 & 3 are wired, suggesting it is at least
RS232.
Other pins are 4 (RTS, wired also to pin 20), pin 7 (GND) and pin 9 (+ voltage).
The pin assignment is according to the rs232 description.
There is an N8T15 & N8T16 chip on the board, are these similar to the M1488 &
M1489
rs232 line driver chips?
Ed
--
This one is apparently made by Gr Electronics, who
were based in the UK
and in the US.
This is based on the fact that is says 'GR 185-2' on the board.
I searched Google, but I couldn't find any info.
As the housing was loose, I opened it, and it uses an Intel 8048
microcontroller, has 8
character and has a curled cable which has a DB25 connector at the end.
The cable has 7 wires, and when the battery door is opened (this device
get's it power
Sounds like a device that I have seen for doing inventory and stock
checking, db25 could be for a bar code or? Anyway people go up and down the
aisles in markets with them filling in sku and quantity, periodically
docking to download the data into some host. 
19 Sep
19 Sep
1:49 a.m.
Ed wrote:
Not likely in this case, 2 of the wires must carry the power, as there is no
own powersource in the terminal. I picked it up when collecting 4 11/34's at Shell,
and in one of the cupboard I found this pocket terminal.
I have opened the db25 plug, and pins 2 & 3 are wired, suggesting it is at least
RS232.
Other pins are 4 (RTS, wired also to pin 20), pin 7 (GND) and pin 9 (+ voltage).
The pin assignment is according to the rs232 description.
There is an N8T15 & N8T16 chip on the board, are these similar to the M1488 &
M1489
rs232 line driver chips?
... found listings in an IC Master (1982) (sorry no pinouts):
N8T15 (Signetics): Line drivers, single-ended (2 per device)
/ 4-input; RS232B,C; MIL188 / Output +-6V / Power Supply +-12V
N8T16 (Signetics): Line receivers (2 per device)
/ hysteresis EIA/MIL / Input Threshold +-2V / Supply Voltage 5V
12 Feb
12 Feb
11:14 p.m.
Just noticed this in my ccmp "saved " folder, this was rec'd just before a
holiday in Canada, and was forgotten. Do you need pinouts for N8T15 & 16 ?
They are
N8T15 :
Gate 1 13,12,11,10 i/p's 9 o/p.
Gate 2 1, 2 , 3 , 4 i/p's 5 o/p.
14 Vcc
8 Vee
7 Gnd.
N8T16 :
Gate 1 Gate 2
Output 13 2
Strobe 12 3
Hysteresis 11 4
MIL(+) 10 5
EIA 9 6
MIL(-) 8 1
Vcc 14
Gnd 7
The only caveat is that the MIL(-) connections are not clearly allocated
to either gate on the pinout. I " ASSUME " they are as shown as it seems
logical to keep all the conns. for each gate on one side of the package -
but you never know !
By the way my data shows for the N8T16
I/P voltage +- 25V
Sensitivity - 1.2/1.2V
Geoff.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brent Hilpert" <hilpert(a)cs.ubc.ca>
To: <cctech(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 9:27 PM
Subject: Re: need some info on some sort of pocket terminal
> There is an N8T15 & N8T16 chip on the board,
are these similar to the
M1488 & M1489
rs232 line
driver chips?
... found listings in an IC Master (1982) (sorry no pinouts):
N8T15 (Signetics): Line drivers, single-ended (2 per device)
/ 4-input; RS232B,C; MIL188 / Output +-6V / Power Supply +-12V
N8T16 (Signetics): Line receivers (2 per device)
/ hysteresis EIA/MIL / Input Threshold +-2V / Supply Voltage 5V
7385
days inactive
7535
days old
5 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
geoffreythomas＠onetel.net.uk -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
marvin＠rain.org -
mikeford＠socal.rr.com -
quapla＠xs4all.nl