On 12/12/08, Mr Ian Primus <ian_primus at yahoo.com> wrote:
What options are there for adding an RS-232 port to a
Commodore PET?
There are a couple that I am aware of...
The computer's user port has a different pinout
from the C64 (although it uses the same connector), and the port doesn't have the
serial output signals the 64 does. Therefore, the quick and dirty hacks that worked great
on the 64 to provide serial won't work on the PET.
As far as I recall, there's nothing magical about the "serial" pins on
the C-64 except that there's some ROM routines backing them up so that
you just "OPEN 2,2" and it's all "handled". I _think_ someone
did
port those routines to the PET, but I couldn't tell you what magazine
it was published in.
What communications options exist/existed for the
PET, aside from Commodore-produced IEEE-488 modems?
I have a TNW (The Net Works?) IEEE-488 serial adapter. It's a "dumb"
UART like a 6402 that you strap for baud, stop bits, parity, etc., and
enough logic to gate its 8-bit RCV and 8-bit TX buses onto and off of
the PET's IEEE bus. Since there's no CPU, it's more than a small
handful of popcorn logic. It could probably be done these days with a
small amount of bus drivers and GALs/CPLDs in a fraction of the space.
I also have a ROM-socket 6850 adapter. It occupies the entire ROM
space (i.e., it doesn't share the socket with a ROM), but it's easy to
address from software on the PET side. You have to write your own
software from scratch, but it's less tough than bit-banging, I'd say.
The circuit is trivial since ROM sockets have the data bus, plenty of
address bits and address enables. The only thing you need is a flying
lead for R/W (since ROM sockets do _not_ have that).
Does the ROM include routines to handle such
communication, like the C64, or would software need to be created for a particular
interface?
The PET has no facilities specifically for serial port comms, unlike
the C-64. Something like the TNW adapter would be easy to talk to -
regular PET I/O (OPEN, PRINT, INPUT, GET). Wiring up a 6850 or using
User Port bit-banging would require custom software.
Is there a teminal emulation software available for
the PET?
I think I've seen something in BASIC for the IEEE acoustic coupler (it
would resemble the example one given in the VIC-MODEM manual), but I
don't recall any comms software specifically for the PET back in the
day.
-ethan