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I seen your repository a while ago and was thoroughly impressed, though this was before I had the tapes or a terminal. I'll have to check it out further. Thanks for reminding me about it. Also thanks for the link to the 4041, I sent an inquiry.

On the belts, I've seen people 3d printing tape belts for other kinds of tape players with flexible TPU filament. Which is pretty cool, probably will take quite a bit of testing with different durometers/lengths/widths. If all else fails, this is definitely an option to look into.

From what I've read the 4200s are upgraded and rebadged 4100 terminals. The only real difference is a higher resolution and more performance. The 4200s have modified internals that integrated a bunch of logic into asics on a single board and some have larger memory. 4200's are fully compliant with 4100 stuff, so it's likely I can use the ATOM/EZ-TEST, I'll definitely have to try it if I can acquire that 4041. The terminal I have access to is a 9201T which is just a rebadged 4205 that was dedicated to be used with the DAS9200, although I don't have a keyboard for it, which is problematic. Maybe it's possible to take inspiration from your keyboard interface and build a kind of emulated keyboard for Tek terminals, as i'm sure that would be useful for others. Seems like the terminal keyboards are more rare than the terminals themselves, which is unsurprising.

I originally got the tapes, because I figured I could use the EZ-TEST tapes to bypass having the EZ-TEST PC software, which is basically non-existent at this point. The 4200 Mod tapes I've been told are largely the same as the non-4200 Mod EZ-TEST tapes but have DAS9200 support among other machines. They claimed the mod tapes have the DAS9200's Tek Codes and Standards for the 8150 Test System Interface but couldn't confirm it and might have been misremembering. I know the EZ-TEST tapes you have backed up have DAS9100 support, but unfortunately no DAS9200 support. So it's very possible these mod tapes have what I'm looking for. The TSI 8150 codes/standards are really what I need from the tapes, as it's possible to talk with any TSI 8150 capable Tek machine provided you have the TSI 8150 codes/standards without using any EZ-TEST at all, and likely is the most future proofed option.

Thanks for the reply!

I recovered and posted the files for EZ-TEST v5.0 and the 4041 System Verification tape on my 4041 github repository 5 years ago:

I haven't used my 4041 since then - so I don't know if it is still working.

Biggest issue with making any kind of backup tape is the DC100 tape drive belts are moldy and broken - even the new-old-stock tapes in shrink wrap.

Same thing goes for my precious 1979 Tektronix 4052 and 4054A computer DC300 tapes.

I created a 4041 "Console Commander" using a tiny M5STACK ATOM LITE ESP32 PICO CPU module with an ATOM MATE where I soldered in a 3.3V to 5V level shifter to interface to the 4041 keyboard interface and posted the files in this repository - to use the programming keyboard interface to load programs into my 4041.

I would bet you could load the EZ-TEST programs onto the ATOM instead of my ADVENTURE program.

I don't see any mention of the Tek 4200 terminals in the 4041 Graphics ROM manual. If the 4200 terminal can emulate the 4000 or 4100 terminals, then it may work.

A quick google search for "Tektronix 4041 buy" turned up this link:

I have these 5 tapes for the 4041, any chance someone has a working 4041 still and can back them up? If they aren't dead that is. I'd be willing to pay for shipping both ways and for your time.

4041 DDU Checkout Software Version 1.1 4041 System Verification RLSE # 2.8 S45F010 opt.04 TEK-EZ TEST Vol.I-Generator 4200 Mod DNS Version 5.1 (DNS0012) S45F010 opt.04 TEK-EZ TEST Vol.II-Translator 4200 Mod DNS Version 5.1 (DNS0012) Likely a blank tape, (but still would like to see if it has data and back it up if it does)

I really need the TEK-EZ TEST Vol.I/Vol.II 4200 Mod tapes specifically for my DAS 9200 / 4200 series TEK terminal and have been looking for a 4041 for a long time but never seen one for sale yet.

They have.

It's called Lab View, and it co$ts.

Fred, N8YX

Wish someone would write a 4041 emulator for windows.

All,

Thanks for the feedback. My library has manuals for the various plugins, controller, what have you. Can probably re-use Monty's approach to getting the serial port talking as the programming interface then using one of my Model 102s as the development platform. I also have a DVI unit for it so 4041 programs could be stored as files on disk and sent to the Tek hardware as needed.

Still want to try my hand at using a Tandy 102/200 and the RS-232/GPIB interface to see what I can achieve in terms of instrument load.

Next on the list is to find another 4041 with dual serial/dual GPIB ports and the option ROM carrier. That one can go in the rack next to my first 4041. Another project might be a translator routine to allow the 102's keyboard and function keys to mimic the Tek PDK, if I can find the macro sequences for the special keys it uses.

Fred, N8YX

Monty:. I was hoping you created a ROM Boot chip that could get plugged into the ROM tray and left there to boot up quick at power up.

Gary

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________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Monty McGraw <mmcgraw74@...>
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2023 4:35:37 AM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [TekScopes] Tek 4041 GPIB Controller

Gary,

My Console Commander can be used to load and run any 4041 BASIC program from the front panel keyboard interface.

If you change the program by adding a PS/2 keyboard interface - you will be able to develop your own 4041 BASIC program using the keyboard or just use the keyboard to interact with the program if you have a menu. For example - I demonstrated using the 4041 Graphics ROM to emulate the 4050 Graphics computer - and ported my Artillery game to 4041 BASIC and connected the rear serial interface to my PC running TeraTerm serial program which emulates Tek graphics.

Here is a simple program to interface a PS/2 keyboard to an Arduino:

That program could be combined with my Serial.ino Console Commander program by removing the M5 statements and just using the serialprint statements to initialize the 4041 rear serial port and then using the PS/2 keyboard to type 4041 BASIC commands. The Arduino would not need the 3.3V to 5V adapter - it could drive the 4041 keyboard interface directly.

Gary,

My Console Commander can be used to load and run any 4041 BASIC program from the front panel keyboard interface.

If you change the program by adding a PS/2 keyboard interface - you will be able to develop your own 4041 BASIC program using the keyboard or just use the keyboard to interact with the program if you have a menu. For example - I demonstrated using the 4041 Graphics ROM to emulate the 4050 Graphics computer - and ported my Artillery game to 4041 BASIC and connected the rear serial interface to my PC running TeraTerm serial program which emulates Tek graphics.

Monty McGraw
mmcgraw74@...

Monty: Did you ever get around to making a Boot ROM for the Tek 4041 GPIB Controller?

Gary Robert Bosworth
E-mail: grbosworth@...


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________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Monty McGraw <mmcgraw74@...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2023 5:32:45 PM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [TekScopes] Tek 4041 GPIB Controller

Hi Fred,

Yes I bought the 4041 with DDU. I had to replace the hard drive twice, and then I had to replace the floppy drive.

I did get it to work with the 4041.

I believe the 4041 can handle multi-instruments, but it will depend on how much data is being transferred and the speed of the storage device. The internal tape drive is not very fast.

I connected the 4041 to a Tektronix TM5000 crate with digital meter and an HP Data Acquisition and was collecting battery voltage reading - but that is not very speed intensive.

I'm pretty sure the 4041 used the TI9914 GPIB controller IC - that was pretty fast.

I believe the 4041 was a popular GPIB instrument controller so I would think it was designed to handle multiple instruments. Certainly the 512KB memory could contain a lot of data at the maximum GPIB speed.

In terms of a keyboard - I'll bet you could find an arduino program that would work with a PS/2 style keyboard (before USB keyboards) - and then it would be easy to connect that keyboard to the 4041 front panel like my Commander. You would be able to map the PC function keys to the special 4041 keyboard keys since the 4041 manual describes those key codes.

Hi Fred,

Yes I bought the 4041 with DDU. I had to replace the hard drive twice, and then I had to replace the floppy drive.

I did get it to work with the 4041.

I believe the 4041 can handle multi-instruments, but it will depend on how much data is being transferred and the speed of the storage device. The internal tape drive is not very fast.

I connected the 4041 to a Tektronix TM5000 crate with digital meter and an HP Data Acquisition and was collecting battery voltage reading - but that is not very speed intensive.

I'm pretty sure the 4041 used the TI9914 GPIB controller IC - that was pretty fast.

I believe the 4041 was a popular GPIB instrument controller so I would think it was designed to handle multiple instruments. Certainly the 512KB memory could contain a lot of data at the maximum GPIB speed.

In terms of a keyboard - I'll bet you could find an arduino program that would work with a PS/2 style keyboard (before USB keyboards) - and then it would be easy to connect that keyboard to the 4041 front panel like my Commander. You would be able to map the PC function keys to the special 4041 keyboard keys since the 4041 manual describes those key codes.

You can use the Tek 4041 to control upto 14 instruments - power supplies, function generators, digital multimeters, Oscilloscopes, etc. It is quite complex and time-consuming to write the code to drive the thing. I have 4 of the 4041 in different configurations - TTL driver, hard disk driver, floppy disk driver, 2nd RS232 Serial Port. The hardest thing is finding programmed DC-100 magnetic tapes that are still healthy with no dropped bits. This GPIB controller can usually step faster than the test instruments react to commands. I have driven very complex instrument clusters to test missile electronics, especially in environmental chambers over week-long test runs. Sweet.

Gary

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________________________________
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Fred_N8YX <N8YX@...>
Sent: Tuesday, April 18, 2023 7:23:56 AM
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [TekScopes] Tek 4041 GPIB Controller

2-year thread bump:

Monty, I'm pretty sure you bought the 4041/DDU combo that I'd had a watch on for a while. Nice to see it ended up at a good place if so.

The above said: I have a 4041 with all PD ROMs, RS-232 option and so forth. Been trying to source a keyboard for the thing forever and your solution looks to be a good approach.

I also have a 7854, a few each of TM-5003/5006 and more 5000-series plugins than I can fit into a decent-sized pickup. Also in the inventory are a couple Tandy 102s, a 200 and an RS-232/GPIB interface. I can use the 102/200 as a terminal for the 4041 or I can develop a program to control the instruments via the Tandy computers. When I get them working, a couple Tek 2402As round out the GPIB pile.

So, a question for you and anyone else who has played around in the Tek GPIB world - specifically in the area of test automation:

Does a 4041 handle real-time multi-instrument scenarios well, or are these controllers and related software geared more towards single/instrument automation? And can the average PC-to-GPIB controller effectively manage multi-instrument scenarios? What I'd like to do here is to automate an RF or AF test bench to some degree and use whichever controller that's most suited for the job.

Thanks!

Fred, N8YX

Fred,

FWIW, I had a friend of mine that was a real nut about the Tektronix
stuff and collected it for 40+ years. He owned about 8 of the 4041s and I
eventually found a keyboard for him at the Tampa hamfest. But that's the
only keyboard that he or I have ever seen, so they must be exceedingly
rare. He also had a 4041 DDU (Disk Drive Unit) that I had picked up for
him at a surplus store in Melbourne, Florida about 25 years ago. He died
about 7 or 8 years ago and and couple of his greedy relatives got into his
electronics hoard and as far as I could ever find out, most of it got sold
for gold scrap.

2-year thread bump:

Monty, I'm pretty sure you bought the 4041/DDU combo that I'd had a watch on for a while. Nice to see it ended up at a good place if so.

The above said: I have a 4041 with all PD ROMs, RS-232 option and so forth. Been trying to source a keyboard for the thing forever and your solution looks to be a good approach.

I also have a 7854, a few each of TM-5003/5006 and more 5000-series plugins than I can fit into a decent-sized pickup. Also in the inventory are a couple Tandy 102s, a 200 and an RS-232/GPIB interface. I can use the 102/200 as a terminal for the 4041 or I can develop a program to control the instruments via the Tandy computers. When I get them working, a couple Tek 2402As round out the GPIB pile.

So, a question for you and anyone else who has played around in the Tek GPIB world - specifically in the area of test automation:

Does a 4041 handle real-time multi-instrument scenarios well, or are these controllers and related software geared more towards single/instrument automation? And can the average PC-to-GPIB controller effectively manage multi-instrument scenarios? What I'd like to do here is to automate an RF or AF test bench to some degree and use whichever controller that's most suited for the job.

Thanks!

Fred, N8YX

Monty: I have 512K of RAM and all of the ROMs originally offered. Let me
know when you have anything new to offer.

Gary

I completed my port of the classic Adventure game to the Tektronix 4041!

All the files have been uploaded to my 4041 program repository in the Games/Adventure folder:

I started with my Adventure port to the 4052/4054 computers - a lot of 4041 BASIC commands are the same, the work was around the differences :)

This program should run on any 4041 with a working tape or DDU floppy or hard disk.

The screenshot link below was from using Tera Term on my Windows 10 laptop:

I will now work on removing the dependency for the tape/floppy/hard disk since the minimum memory of the 4041 is 128KB, I may be able to combine all the files into the main program.

You will still need the Program Development Option ROM as the program files are ASCII text and have to be parsed by the Program Development ROMs.

After the 4041 console has changed to the COMM0: serial port on the back of the 4041, you then use a terminal emulator program on your PC and a USB to RS-232 serial adapter to send programs to your 4041, and view the console on your terminal emulator.

I also found a free terminal emulator for windows called Tera Term that is simple to use and it includes both VT and Tektronix terminal emulation.

I have been using that program today with my 4041, and it works with EZ-TEST Generator with a couple of quirks. You need to modify the Tera Term properties following these instructions to be able to resize the Tera Term Tek window to match the size of the text so the EZ-Test menus look right:

I have Tera Term screenshots running EZ-TEST in my vcfed thread:

I think I have a solution to the 4041 tape issues - I call it my 4041 Console Commander :)

My Console Commander is a tiny Arduino module connected to and powered by the 4041 keyboard connector with inexpensive Dupont jumper cables.

You simply turn on your 4041 and after it finishes self test - press the button on the Arduino and the Arduino sends to commands to the 4041 at 4800 N82:

set driver "comm0(bau=9600,fla=bid,edit=ras):"
set console "comm0:"

Here is a link to a photo of my Console Commander prototype:

More details in my 4041 thread at vcfed.org:

Gary,

Sorry to hear that - I thought you had your DDU repaired and that you booted from your DDU instead of the tape drive.

I don't suspect the 4041 tape drive, although I would recommend using isopropyl alcohol on a swab to clean the head, and try the tapes again.

It appears the plastibands are only a temporary drive belt solution in the tape cartridge - and they will stretch as the drive rewinds the tape to the beginning before it can find any file.

This is the Amazon link I used to get 4.25 inch plastibands:

It is pretty easy to open the tape cartridge and replace the plastiband - the 4041 operators manual page 5-6 describes tape cartridge respooling with photos on page 5.7.

You don't need to respool the tape to replace the plastiband - just lift the plastiband off the white belt wheels and capstan and put the new plastiband on starting with the capstan and finishing by pulling the plastiband over the white belt wheels. Then I use a bamboo chopstick to pull the belt away from the takeup reel with the least tape and tighten the tape by rotating that reel with a finger, then release the belt onto that reel. I then pull the cover back where the tape head touches the tape and push gently with the chopstick to check the tape tension - the tape should deflect 1/10 of an inch or so, but not 1/4 of an inch.

Then put the cartridge cover back on and fasten the screws and the tape should now work.

Monty: If only the engineers at Tektronix had created a boot ROM that was
not erasable with age. My system is completely dead if I cannot run the
AUTOLD from the tapes. None of my 3 tapes will work with my system. I am
going to try to dig up my other 2 tape drives this weekend and do some
swapping to try and get this 4041 thing up and running. When I built up my
2 Heathkit H8's back in 1977, I never had the slightest difficulty in using
them to the fullest. At my old age, I am losing interest in all of this
technical trouble. I need to be at peace.

Gary

--
Gary Robert Bosworth
grbosworth@...
Tel: 310-317-2247