I've got wierd problem on my Front panel board.

All keys work fine and display and LEDs are ok, but the F+E soft reset doesnt do anything.

F+0 does a Hard Reset with display showing F-0? 01,, after a power up, but after doing something like E 8000 and a few steps up or down ,pressing F+E for a Soft reset does nothing. Pressing F+0 displays Soft? 01?

Ive checked the board for shorts, and component values ( wondered if one of the R1 10k had gone o/c? but cant work out what has gone wrong.?

Any pointers appreciated.

Paul G3WYW

Contiki? has one major problem as I check often.? Its hardware specific, and
no sources.? I think it wants a C128 or similar.? Generally the Commieswere?
pretty slick machines but those that could run CP/M were not typical of other
CP/M systems in configuration and features.? Not always bad but standards....

CP/M in general is limited to character serial IO or something that looks like
that.? That's what it knows.? However I'll add that only the OS structure,
the applications running on that base can do literally anything limited
only by code and memory.? Side note to that is graphics standards were
generally hardware specific and not at all portable.

PC modem cards were in two forms dumb (aka win modems) that required
the PC cpu to do most of the lifting for flipping bits and buffering data.? The
earlier and external modems (through the 56K units) were a serial port
interfaced to the bus and a full modem with smarts (usually 6502 based)
and used the same AT protocal to dial/connect/hangup and of couse encoding.
The crappy winmodems (win95 and win98 only) were not at all popular as
it ate CPU and tended to?be flakey.? ?Modems for DOS, NT, WIn2K and
later had to be of the smarter(complete) form as OS was not generally
friendly to drivers like the winmodems used (cpu eaters).

Ethernet boards (and later wifi) were increasingly smarter and designed
to relieve the cpu of workload. Drivers for them were often specific but
the chipsets used were of a limited larger group so many board used
the same drivers.

These days you can get a whole WIFI or Ethernet to serial adaptor. The little board
does most all of the work and you only need to talk at it like a very fast buffered modem.

Allison

Richard Cini wrote:

There is something for the Commodore computers which did just that. It
was PC software, acting as serial to Ethernet bridge basically.
Unfortunately I don’t remember the name; I’m trying to find it in my
vast archive-o-stuff.

There was a web browser for the C64 called Con-Tiki, I think. It provided a Windows-like user interface, and used some little box to connect to the internet, via an ethernet connector, as I recall.

I also remember ethernet modems for PCs. Some were plug in cards, others were like external modems that connected via the PC's RS-232 ports. I don't know how they worked. I suspect there were special software drivers that ran on the PC to talk to them. They were mainly used to network multiple PCs.

I've seen a number of people who put their vintage computer on-line by using a serial port to connect it to a PC, and then software on the PC to do all the "heavy lifting" to get it on the web. But that feels a bit like cheating. :-)

What I'm thinking of is far less ambitious. Basically, have a website specifically set up to be as easy as possible for vintage computers to navigate. You just need some way to get to the page. Then all the displays a simple ASCII, and you'd send it ASCII keystrokes to navigate.

Lee Hart

--
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint Exupery
--
Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com

Found it:



and this one (a fork of one from Jim Brain):


Rich

--
Rich Cini




?On 8/18/20, 7:03 PM, "Lee Hart" <Z80MC@groups.io on behalf of leeahart@...> wrote:

Mark Moulding wrote:
> I just fired up an old copy of Lynx under Win32, and was able to even
> use Google. It in no way requires a mouse - it uses key strokes to
> select the next/previous "clickable" item (or text field). I don't know
> how this would map to an ASCII keyboard, instead of using the extra keys
> on a PC keyboard, but I bet it's been handled...
>
> Taking a quick look at the source, it all looks to be in pretty
> plain-Jane C...

Richard Cini wrote:
> There’s a smaller Lynx for DOS called “Links”. I have not tried it
> but I did download the source for it. It also looks like it’s written
> in C.

This is exciting news! There are lots of CP/M C compilers (BDS-C,
Small-C). I had assumed that a CP/M browser for the Z80 was a
near-impossibility. But this is making it sound possible after all.

So, I guess you need something that serves the same function as a modem
(serial-to-phone line converter); but for serial-to-ethernet conversion?
These existed for DOS; but I don't know if they were "WinModem" type
gadgets that depended on DOS drivers to actually make them work.

Lee Hart

--
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint Exupery
--
Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com

开云体育

Mark Moulding wrote:

I just fired up an old copy of Lynx under Win32, and was able to even
use Google. It in no way requires a mouse - it uses key strokes to
select the next/previous "clickable" item (or text field). I don't know
how this would map to an ASCII keyboard, instead of using the extra keys
on a PC keyboard, but I bet it's been handled...

Taking a quick look at the source, it all looks to be in pretty
plain-Jane C...

Richard Cini wrote:

There’s a smaller Lynx for DOS called “Links”. I have not tried it
but I did download the source for it. It also looks like it’s written
in C.

This is exciting news! There are lots of CP/M C compilers (BDS-C, Small-C). I had assumed that a CP/M browser for the Z80 was a near-impossibility. But this is making it sound possible after all.

So, I guess you need something that serves the same function as a modem (serial-to-phone line converter); but for serial-to-ethernet conversion? These existed for DOS; but I don't know if they were "WinModem" type gadgets that depended on DOS drivers to actually make them work.

Lee Hart

--
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint Exupery
--
Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com

开云体育

I just fired up an old copy of Lynx under Win32, and was able to even use Google.? It in no way requires a mouse - it uses key strokes to select the next/previous "clickable" item (or text field).? I don't know how this would map to an ASCII keyboard, instead of using the extra keys on a PC keyboard, but I bet it's been handled.? As Bob Kay said, it handles most non-JavaScript cases OK.? It even knows about cookies, allowing you to accept or reject them as they go by (or always or never).? It did not seem to handle secure websites (), which rules out an ever-increasing number of sites - the majority, even - that do not offer a non-secure connection.

Taking a quick look at the source, it all looks to be in pretty plain-Jane C (as in, even I, who tend to write FORTRAN in every language, can understand it).? It may be a bit of a tight fit in 64k (well, 48k TPA), but it might work.? If it's possible at all, I believe it would be a relatively simple project compared to, say, porting LCC to the 1802, as Bill Rowe did.
~~

Mark Moulding

Lee, I was just browsing your site with Lynx with no issues.? Obviously it wouldn't render images but that was pretty much the only difference.? Also when selecting a link to a .pdf file Lynx offered to download it since of course it couldn't display it.

It won't run on sites that require javascript, not sure about CSS.

The web server knows nothing about keystrokes, mouse clicks, etc, nor does it really care. It's the browser's job to translate keystrokes, mouse clicks, etc into HTTP requests which is the only thing the server concerns itself with.? That *may* not be true of Javascript, which is of course moot.

The classic CP/M approach was two serial port CON: and AUX:.
They were typically the same type of devices I used 8251As.
THe bis had both and also supported IObyte which was the
IO vector map.

To a program that used that structure was fairly simple:
It was also more portable.

The problem was early CP/M system often had only one serial port
or more often the second port was not supported by the BIOS and
it was required the modem progrram to support it directly (unportable).
Reason for that was IObyte and support fo it was built into the BDOS
and CCP but the BIOS it was often an unsupported as "optional".

The BIOS was an important part of the system most often early ones
were very minimal.? The Yabut it was possible to include into the bios
improved serial? and parallel support and even add system features
there like buffered? background printing.

By the early 80s that was often improved upon and dual serial ports were
common on systems like Kaypro, NS*, AmproLB+, SB180 and many more.
Single board system were usually two serial ports and one parallel
(centronics printer).

Allison

A cpm based BBS was basically the CCP with undesired commands removed
as a base structure as it was single user.? IT was also possible to time
slice who was active.? A timer interrupt make the timieg and you added
process switching.? Of course that was for more than one use at a time
(POTS ring down and multiple modems, so $$$).

MPM based BBS uses multiple Z80s each running an instance of CP/M+ (V3).
There were flavors of both.

Most (after 1982) were early 8088 based running DOS or CP/M86 and fakeing
mutltitasking by time slice.

The big issue was enough storage for the store and forward (email) and local
library.

The Walnut Creek CD has a few of the BBS system content and the system software.

Market:: and Simtel:: were DEC PDP10 based systems (large easily 300+ user capability).

Allison

Paul Bigwood wrote:

There is Lynx of course. This is a linux text based browser that renders
webpages into text like your vcfmw.org page.

Maybe something like that could be ported to z80 code, if there arent
already some z80 based browsers already?

I've never used Lynx. I'll look into it. Thanks for the tip!

However, I have my doubts. Modern web pages insist on using javascript, CSS, images of text instead of text itself, etc. Then, they depend on a mouse to navigate and click links; no keyboard inputs. VCFMW's own web page depends on them to display what looks like a vintage terminal. I think a Z80 would have a tough time rendering them.

My own website <> doesn't use any javascript, CSS, or images to display text. But, I don't know how to have plain old HTML read or respond to keystrokes.

Lee Hart

--
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint Exupery
--
Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com

开云体育

Lee,

There is Lynx of course. This is a linux text based browser that renders webpages into text like your vcfmw.org page.

Maybe something like that could be ported to z80 code, if there arent already some z80 based browsers already?

Paul Bigwood

Oops - Sorry, that was supposed to be a private message.? My apologies for the bandwidth hogging.
~~

Mark Moulding

开云体育

While on the topic of modems...



They are used in credit card terminals. 2400 baud. Only thing they need besides the normal stuff is a reset signal. Battery...Bluetooth console...dial-up modem. Just imagine the portable BBSing possibilities! I ordered a set for experimentation.

Rich

--
Rich Cini




?On 8/17/20, 12:36 PM, "Lee Hart" <Z80MC@groups.io on behalf of leeahart@...> wrote:

Richard Cini wrote:
> Just a fun thing to do with the Z80MC and SIO card.
> With some great detective work from Josh and a little bit of tinkering,
> I was able to get the SIO connected to a Hayesmodem 300 and to get an
> old CP/M program called “MODM221A” running. MODM221A is a derivative of
> the original MODEM program from Ward Christensen.

What a cool idea! I still have my Hayes Smartmodem, and fondly remember
using it to log onto various BBS's on my CP/M computer back in the 80's.

> Using this combination, there are a few things to note.
> First, you have to boot to the monitor and make sure that console input
> is the bit-banger only, and then load CP/M manually. There’s probably a
> way to permanently do this, but it would require modifying the system ROM.

If anyone figures it out, I can make a new ROM. There are a number of
upgrades like this that I've been meaning to get into. (Where does the
time go...)

> Second, since DTR and RTS are used as address bits, the ACE
> initialization in MODM221 has to disable DTR and RTS (or, if those are
> needed, then the RAM needs to be reduced to 32K and 5V re-routed to put
> it in the right place for the 32K RAM).

The 8250 has four output bits; DTR, RTS, OUT1, and OUT2. I supply a 128K
RAM for U1; it only needs two extra address bits. I happened to use DTR
and RTS (leaving OUT1 and OUT2 unused).

In hindsight, I could have used OUT1 and OUT2 for the extra address
bits; that would leave DTR and RTS free to use normally for serial
communications. Maybe I can do that on the next "spin" of the board.

> I don’t have a BBS setup, but I do have all the parts
> for it – a computer with a Digi 8-port serial board and an analog
> telephone switch. So, that will be my next project.

I wish I knew more about the modern internet. It seems like it should be
possible to setup a "modern" BBS that old CP/M computers can log into.
The old modem would be replaced with a "black box" that connects to the
internet instead of a phone line.

I've seen this done; but the "black box" is a PC, complete with keyboard
and screen. In fact, you do everything on the PC itself. The CP/M
computer is redundant.

Then there is the question of what the web pages on the internet look
like that such a "BBS" accesses. They can't be the usual HTML, color,
graphics, javascript, etc. if you expect a CP/M computer to deal with
it. Examples I've seen may *look* like an old time terminal (like
<> ) but in fact it's a page full of the usual HTML,
javascript, CSS, etc.

Lee Hart

--
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint Exupery
--
Lee Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, www.sunrise-ev.com