So the TPDD was used with Brother sewing machines as well ? You learn something new everyday...
I always thought the cable was just a cable. Didn't know it had parts in it. Someone sold three of them last year on ebay for $35... I guess I could wait and see if anyone else sells them or try to make one. The 25 db part is easy enough to find, but I don't know who sells the square plug that goes into the TPDD. I don't think I'd even use the TPDD, but I guess at this point, it's like a novelty item. On 3/14/2017 5:12 PM, Brian White wrote: There is documentation how to build the cable, somewhere on club100 or bitchin100 or in the M100SIG archive. Unfortunately it's an active cable with electronics in it. It converts from rs232 to ttl, and does a peculiar dirty trick to rob power from the rs232 port. http://ratthing.com/club100/tpdd.do While looking in your stuff, look for a cable that is beige colored and flat like an 8 or 10 conductor telephone cable. If you want to use the drive, you will also need a new belt. the one inside is turned to goo by now. google or ebay search "FRW 8.5 belt" You'll need some alcohol and swabs to clean the tar up. Power is easy. Lot's of universal power packs have a 6v setting and reversable polarity and a barrel connector. I used this one right off the shelf at WalMart for a while: http://www.powerline.com/universal-1300 But then I found Radio Shack 273-1763 and Adapata Plug "M". But you have to get those from ebay and other sellers that happen to have some. It's tiny, doesn't block other plugs, light weight (no transformer), 6v, reversable polarity, ridiculously over-spec (1800ma while the devices only draw 400ma), and says Radio Shack on it. I got several of those and use them on the tpdd-2, a couple model 100s and a model 102, and a CCR-82 tape drive. They all take the same power. Or of course, simply 4 AA batteries. :) On Mar 14, 2017 8:25 AM, "hargarg trurthsr" <fungus...@outlook.com<mailto:fungus...@outlook.com>> wrote: Just found the portable drive. It's the second version. I can't find the power cable or the rs-232 cable, though On 3/13/2017 5:28 PM, Brian White wrote: The dos that comes with the disk drive is loaded from the disk drive from a file on disk (the first time), and you have to kick the process off by typing in a tiny bit of BASIC manually first, which does listen on the com port. You need the Utility Disk that came with the drive, or a copy. If you have lost it, there are a few people here who will make you a copy. There is no way to do it over the internet (yet). Someone has to make a copy from another copy, usng the same model of drive, and mail you an actual floppy, and you must then make a few copies yourself the first thing you do when you get it. But once that dos is instlled, it never sits at a blank screen. It makes a file listing menu. The Utility Disk is different for TPDD vs TPDD-2. So if you need to ask for a copy, you have to know which kind to ask for. Looks like you have your manual at least, and looks like it's for TPDD. REX is really cool. Stephen (Steven?) Adolph has kindly published all of the files and info necessary to build a REX onesself, and after several weeks I managed to do it and produce two working REXs. Now that I have taken the raw info and made a recipe I can follow, and already have all the special software installed and working, I could repeate the process a lot faster. The goal is, hopefully someone ELSE could follow the recipe too. It's eleventy-seven hundred steps, but it doesn't actually require all that much in tools and it's mostly written down now. It could be fleshed out with a little more detail, but it worked for me. There is also a few other forms of DIY option rom modules that are essentially the same as the old EME systems Rombo, but now open source. Anyone can go on OSHPark and order a few PCBs for about $5 for 3. and get the 28C256 or 28F256 (depending on the type of board) from digikey or ebay or wherever. These only act exactly like an original simple option rom, except you can write them yourself with a $30 programmer, and re-write them too. They don't do any of the 50 things a REX does, but then again they are also about 500 times easier and simpler to build and use. These are designed by a guy named Adam who goes by "FigTronix" on OSHPark. I have started documenting all this stuff at http://tandy.wiki . It's a bit skeletal still so far, and poorly organized, but it's a wiki. I will gradually work on it over time, and so can anyone else who wants to. It's only been up a few days. Even the stuff that is up there already, a lot of it I have more info and pictures to put up when I get a chance. -- bkw On Mar 13, 2017 6:16 PM, "hargarg trurthsr" <fungus...@outlook.com<mailto:fungus...@outlook.com>> wrote: Monoprice 479 -- good to know for future reference. Thanks. The DOS I used was pre all of that. I'm talking ancient. I think it's the one I got from Radio Shack with the Floppy when I bought it. It was fairly basic, I think with a simple menu to load, save, delete on floppy, and I think I do remember it needing the floppy drive hooked up to function. REX sounds super interesting -- possibly the most useful item ever made for the portables. I'll consider buying a SuperREX. On 3/13/2017 9:13 AM, Brian White wrote: Too late now I guess, but just get a Monoprice 479 for $2 and it's the perfect cable for M100/102/200/600 to a pc all pre-made molded in one piece. No null-modem adapters or gender changers needed. If you need a usb-serial adapter on the pc side, anything works. They all have the right 9pin, male, DTE wiring. I don't know of any dos's that sat at a blank screen waiting. Even teeny has a prompt. I was just playing with a REX last night and loaded all of the roms available on-line plus one that is not anywhere else on-line that came in one of my M100's. They all display some kind of menu. -- bkw On Mar 13, 2017 11:48 AM, "hargarg trurthsr" <fungus...@outlook.com<mailto:fungus...@outlook.com>> wrote: I'm fairly sure it's probably the DOS for the floppy drive now. When I do call 63012 it prints a line feed and just waits there like it's looking for the floppy drive. I've ordered some parts to try to make a null modem cable to connect to the PC. I could probably write a program to send the ROM content to PC and save on it at some point. I doubt that it's anything all that interesting. Anyway, thanks everyone for tips and pointers. This is a great mailing list. On 3/13/2017 6:38 AM, Brian White wrote: The rombo is a generic device that can have any rom you wanted loaded on it, like a thumb drive. Doesn't have to be written by or even licensed by EME. And there are a few different roms that had disk support in them. After re-seating, call 63012 still didn't work any better? If you're really curious you could mail the rom to one of us who can read it out. (I could do it easy) Or maybe you have a local electronics shop and they can read it. If it's a rombo, then it has a standard 28 pin soic eprom, and they can clip a soic28 test clip on it. Or if you want I could tell you exactly what to get and what to do if you wanted to get an eprom burner and test clip and dump it yourself. Though finding the BASIC program to do it would be about $75 cheaper! Then we can look at it easy. On Mar 13, 2017 7:03 AM, "hargarg trurthsr" <fungus...@outlook.com<mailto:fungus...@outlook.com>> wrote: The only thing that I can think of is, it might be the DOS for the portable floppy drive which I had at one point(I still might somewhere). I don't know if EME systems was ever involved with that or whether the portable floppy drive required an option ROM to operate. On 3/13/2017 12:54 AM, Mike Nugent wrote: EME Systems (Dr. Tracy Allen) offered several products for the "Model T” notebooks. Take a look at a back issue of Portable 100 for the ads. For example, go to http://www.club100.org/library/libp100.html and near the bottom right side of the page, select "Vol. 9 No. 9 Sep/Nov 1992” to download or view that issue of P100. (Direct link to the PDF: Vol. 9 No. 9 Sep/Nov 1992<ftp://ftp.whtech.com/club100/doc/p100-9208.pdf>) See the ad for the XR4 on page 2 as indicated by a PDF reader. (The actual magazine's page is CII, the inside of the front cover.) The OWL weather logger ad appears on page 19 (magazine page 17). EME’s ROMBO and extRAM show on page 28 (magazine page 26). I don’t know if the EME Systems address and phone numbers are still valid. I’m sure other mention of EME Systems has been made on this mailing list. Tracy himself may even have posted. Maybe check the archives? I hope this info helps lead you to the info you need. — Nuge — On Mar 12, 2017, at 9:56 AM, hargarg trurthsr <fungus...@outlook.com<mailto:fungus...@outlook.com>> wrote: I have a model 102 with 32k ram expansion which I got in the 80's. I just recently rediscovered it in closet and found some rom installed in the option rom slot. It has an eme systems logo on it, but I have no idea what it is. I've already tried calling 63012 and 63013 and the computer just freezes when I do that. Is there any way to figure out what the rom is from basic ?
