[M100] dc jack

[Gregory McGill]

I was asked today if I had replacement DC jacks for the M100 is there a
part out there I can get from one of the usual suppliers?

Greg

>

[M100] M100 as Terminal to Raspberry Pi

[Bill Miranda]

Can anyone point me to current instructions on how to configure a Raspberry Pi 
so that I can connect my M100 as a serial console? I found numerous websites 
with instructions for older versions of Raspian which were pre-systemd.  I was 
able to get the M100 to connect to the Pi after a lot of experimenting but I 
once I login I can’t get anything to work.

Regards,
Bill Miranda
bill.mira...@gmail.com

Re: [M100] Burn in program

[Daryl Tester]

On 12/7/21 8:12 am, Peter Noeth wrote:


I miss those days of computing 


I believe you might be amongst like-minded individuals here. :)

Cheers,
  --dt

Re: [M100] Burn in program

[Peter Noeth]

This was in the early 80's. I worked on both the Nova 1200 and the Eclipse
S230, both were ALU based. The Novas we used were core memory only (4k or
8k x 16 bits). The Eclipses were usually core memory, but there were
dynamic memory boards on the later systems. The core memory could be
"interleaved" to increase write speed.

The Eclipses also had a two board CPU with the second board a kind of math
co-processor / accelerator.

We also used the Data General S140 in the later systems, which had the
"virtual" front console (no blinking lights or switches), but I didn't work
on those.

As Jerry mentioned, AutoTrol was a competitor with Calma and about two or
three others. Calma started with a big digitizing table, to input paper
maps. Systems were then developed (the GDS line) to do IC mask design,
which was the major business, and then mechanical drafting and finally PCB
layout. National Semiconductor was a big customer. We also included pen
plotters (HP and Xinetics) of which some could handle a 4'x8' sheet of
paper, for plotting out the IC masks at a magnification one could easily
see the features and verify measurements.

I miss those days of computing 

Regards,  Peter


> --
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Sun, 11 Jul 2021 10:42:24 +0930
> From: Daryl Tester 
> To: m...@bitchin100.com
> Subject: Re: [M100] Burn in program
> Message-ID:
> <0618d8d5-1d28-7d6a-542b-fd27c8420...@handcraftedcomputers.com.au>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> On 11/7/21 9:24 am, Peter Noeth wrote:
>
> > ... repairing?Data General mini computers,
>
> Novas, or Eclipses?  You said discrete ALU board, so I'm suspecting Nova,
> but I've never seen the internals of an Eclipse.
>
> Cheers,
>--dt
>
>

Re: [M100] A decent replacement for M100 "Feet"

[RETRO Innovations]

On 7/11/2021 1:33 PM, Brian White wrote:


Jim Brain did some work on it and the idea didn't work out, but there 
is a lot he did that are good ideas that I'd been meaning to cherry 
pick. Actually I already did some of that.


I think the master branch of my work should be fine to merge into the 
master codebase.  Essentially, I:


 * Split up the code into a few chunks that expressed certain functions
 * cleaned up the logging system with some macros
 * Removed the overly complex ring buffer for input data
 * Added in the remaining operation extensions (SEEK/TELL, etc.),
   though they can be optionally left out of the compilation
 * reduced the number of "magic numbers" in the codebase with defines
   and C style enums.

The vfs_mods* branches are the more aggressive ideas and I agree those 
do not work as yet.


The unit and dev board is still sitting on my desk, along with the M100, 
waiting for me to finish fixing bugs and push out the vfs branch.  A new 
position at a new company intruded on my free time, so I am clawing my 
way back from that to devote energy to this.


But, the code in master should be fine to merge, and there's nothing 
rocket science in there.


I also saw my name in another thread, but I don't remember doing 
anything with the M100 except making these mods to the PDDuino 
codebase.  If my supposed exploits helped people, I will happily take 
credit, but I can't recall any other work I've done on this platform.


https://github.com/go4retro/PDDuino

Jim

Re: [M100] A decent replacement for M100 "Feet"

[Brian White]

On Sun, Jul 11, 2021, 8:14 AM Brian Brindle  wrote:

> > I didn't think anyone else was actually trying them out.
>
> BKW - I just assumed the MountT was wildly popular based on how simple and
> awesome it was. I'm genuinely jealous that I didn't think of it.. I'll be
> honest, there is something in my training/experience that was like DO NOT
> HOOK THINGS UP WITHOUT BUFFERING/PROTECTION/ETC!
>

You are not wrong of course. But little diy toys like this have to be
compromises to make them doable.


Then you go and pop a USB jack on the BC port and the world didn't end and
> it's worked great.
>


That IS a bit risky. Ideally there should be some sort of current limit to
avoid drawing more than 50 or 60 ma. But I don't know how to do that in a
small practical way.

At least I made sure the BOM has a plastic plug and stressed in the docs
why this is important even though that plug is uncommon and expensive while
normal metal shell plugs are dirt cheap.

(the metal shell of normal de9f shorts the power and ground pins, you
should never use a metal shell de9f in the bcr port)





> I'm a daily carrier of my Model-T, I write a lot but 90% of what I do with
> it is useless tinkering to make it do stuff similar to what my phone and
> readily available laptop can do. In fact, in most instances my laptop is
> hooked up and running to debug the thing that isn't working right on the
> M100. That being said, the PDDuino provided weeks of endless debugging
> entertainment.
>

Yes that does still need a lot of debugging sorry ;)

Jim Brain did some work on it and the idea didn't work out, but there is a
lot he did that are good ideas that I'd been meaning to cherry pick.
Actually I already did some of that.

It's still not quite all the way there yet. It still doesn't work with
other clients like WP-2. I think it's still limited to TS-DOS.

My problem last time I was working on it was I think enabling debugging is
screwing it up. Things work without debugging, and break with debugging,
well great now what? haha


I checked out your latest code for it recently with the new main loop and
> it works very well now and is my "daily-driver" for storage.
>
> I very much respect all of you guys who can not only do this stuff but
> document it where others can play along. I seem to fail miserably at that.
> I do have a current project in the works that I hope to change that with..
> We will see.
>
> After 20+ years of using M100s I stumbled on an M102 cheap and snatched it
> up. I worked at Radio Shack back in the 90s as a teen and remember lusting
> after the discontinued M102 but hadn't touched one since then. I much
> prefer the size/weight and keyboard to my M100. I also like the system bus
> being accessible like it is so built a little jig for my project. I
> followed your example and added a USB port to it to power my PDDuino, once
> I get a real board made for it I'll get the right length USB cord and it
> will look as awesome as the M100 does with the MountT, but here it is:
>
> http://niedobry.com/mod100/images/bus_jig.jpg
>
> Brian
>


Nice.

Yeah The upside down ports on 102 are annoying. IOlivetti is the same. For
those I just decided to rely on right-angle usb cables rather than multiple
versions of the pcb. Half the point was to remove all the ways to get
things wrong like with the wrong serial wiring etc. Though, at least for
the Feather boards, since they have asymetrical pins, you could safely have
two sets of holes on the same board. For teensy boards, you can already
plug them in wrong now, but at least with only a single set of holes, you
can have a single silkscreen showing the single correct way.

For that bus board, if you use a vertical usb port, it can be moved below
or above the system bus so that it doesn't block the printer port, and you
can include a pass through pin header so the system bus is still usable for
DVI. Though the port would stick out then. Maybe a horizontal port could
still be used just in some other position.

Well thank you for the kind words. I think everything I've done so far has
actually been pretty low hanging fruit. I could not have designed REX for
instance. And I have yet to manage even a hello world in machine language.
I didn't write either dlplus or pdduino just picked them up and did a
little work on them, etc.




> On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 4:08 AM Brian K. White 
> wrote:
>
>> On 7/9/21 4:21 PM, Peter Vollan wrote:
>> > You'll have to explain what that is past the printer and serial ports.
>> https://github.com/bkw777/MounT
>> https://github.com/bkw777/BCR_Breakout
>> https://github.com/bkw777/PDDuino
>>
>> I didn't think anyone else was actually trying them out.
>>
>> --
>> bkw
>>
>>
>> > On Fri, 9 Jul 2021 at 13:01, Brian Brindle > > > wrote:
>> >
>> > I found this thing called a "Laptop Foot" at the checkout of my
>> > local Barnes and Noble the other day. I am slightly embarrassed to
>> > admit that I paid $12 for it but also 

Re: [M100] A decent replacement for M100 "Feet"

[Brian Brindle]

> I didn't think anyone else was actually trying them out.

BKW - I just assumed the MountT was wildly popular based on how simple and
awesome it was. I'm genuinely jealous that I didn't think of it.. I'll be
honest, there is something in my training/experience that was like DO NOT
HOOK THINGS UP WITHOUT BUFFERING/PROTECTION/ETC! Then you go and pop a USB
jack on the BC port and the world didn't end and it's worked great.

I'm a daily carrier of my Model-T, I write a lot but 90% of what I do with
it is useless tinkering to make it do stuff similar to what my phone and
readily available laptop can do. In fact, in most instances my laptop is
hooked up and running to debug the thing that isn't working right on the
M100. That being said, the PDDuino provided weeks of endless debugging
entertainment. I checked out your latest code for it recently with the new
main loop and it works very well now and is my "daily-driver" for storage.

I very much respect all of you guys who can not only do this stuff but
document it where others can play along. I seem to fail miserably at that.
I do have a current project in the works that I hope to change that with..
We will see.

After 20+ years of using M100s I stumbled on an M102 cheap and snatched it
up. I worked at Radio Shack back in the 90s as a teen and remember lusting
after the discontinued M102 but hadn't touched one since then. I much
prefer the size/weight and keyboard to my M100. I also like the system bus
being accessible like it is so built a little jig for my project. I
followed your example and added a USB port to it to power my PDDuino, once
I get a real board made for it I'll get the right length USB cord and it
will look as awesome as the M100 does with the MountT, but here it is:

http://niedobry.com/mod100/images/bus_jig.jpg

Brian



On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 4:08 AM Brian K. White  wrote:

> On 7/9/21 4:21 PM, Peter Vollan wrote:
> > You'll have to explain what that is past the printer and serial ports.
> https://github.com/bkw777/MounT
> https://github.com/bkw777/BCR_Breakout
> https://github.com/bkw777/PDDuino
>
> I didn't think anyone else was actually trying them out.
>
> --
> bkw
>
>
> > On Fri, 9 Jul 2021 at 13:01, Brian Brindle  > > wrote:
> >
> > I found this thing called a "Laptop Foot" at the checkout of my
> > local Barnes and Noble the other day. I am slightly embarrassed to
> > admit that I paid $12 for it but also I've been very happy with how
> > it works so...
> >
> > It's just the one wedge, you pop it under the back of the M100 and
> > it just sort of tripods. It's very stable, no rocking or anything
> > and has it at a decent angle for me. I find it easier to keep up
> > with and quicker to deploy than my plastic feet.
> >
> > Quick Amazon search for "Laptop Foot" or Universal Laptop/Notebook
> > stands will reveal 4-packs available from $10-$13 but totally lacks
> > the instant gratification I received for 4x the price, not to
> > mention the blank look from my SO as I ran from the checkout to the
> > Starbucks inside, ripped my rubberized wedge from its box and
> > plopped my M102 on it happily exclaiming "Hu?! HU?!! Awesome right?!"
> >
> > She didn't respond, likely because it was too awesome for her to
> > handle. Anyway, I thought you guys would appreciate it.
> >
> > Behold - the M100 foot!
> >
> > http://niedobry.com/mod100/images/ <
> http://niedobry.com/mod100/images/>
> >
> >
> > Brian
> >
>
>
> --
> bkw
>