On Sun, 21 Jan 2001, Tony Duell wrote:
You could always do what I have to do when I can't
find a necessary piece
of ancient hardware.... Get out a soldering iron and _build_ one... :-)
I wish I had the time, Tony. And I wish I had your skills ;)
The TRS-80 serial board is not complex, and the
schematic exists. It's in
the manual, and it was printed in one of Bill Barden's articles in Byte
in the mid 1980s. The necessary chips are almost all available -- the
only thing that would be hard to get now is the COM8116 baud rate
generator, and you can kludge over that particularly if you only need one
baud rate.
I could probably track down the COM8116 at a local surplus store, but
again it's the time factor. Also, I don't have the manual (or at least
don't know where I might have a copy since everything I have is buried)
and haven't been able to find one online.
However, I have come up with solution. The software I'm trying to run
requires two TRS-80's to be connected together via a modem connection or a
null modem serial connection. I have a couple each Modem I's, Modem II's,
and other variations (Ib, etc). It seems the Expansion Interface doesn't
need the serial port option to connect to a modem, correct? So I'm just
going to use two Modem II's and a telco line simulator (or two PBX
extensions) for the telco loop.
If this works then I won't need the serial port boards.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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