[M100] Portcomm

[Brian K. White]

Apparently at one time Club100 sold a MS-DOS TPDD server called Portcomm.

Anyone ever seen it? I can find nothing on Club100 or anywhere else.

https://archive.org/details/P100-Magazine/1989-11/page/22/

--
bkw

Re: [M100] Gold Card v7.10 2x256Kb IC Card expansion for M100/T102 from 1988

[Brian K. White]

Steve, I just noticed that the GoldCard 7.1 rom image is wrong in your 
Club100 directory. It's a copy of the DISK+ 3.1 rom.


However, the hex file is correct. I converted it to a binary and here is 
a copy of that: http://tandy.wiki/File:GoldCard_7.1.bin


--
bkw


On 1/11/21 19:40, Steve Baker wrote:

Greetings again Brian and everyone,


I would never ask to break something.

If it has screws or obvious snaps, and you're comfy then fine, 
otherwise don't think one second about it.


My sincere apologies! I didn’t for a moment think that you were asking 
me to break anything; my post was simply me lamenting my emerging but 
nascent skills! The case appears to be quite well stuck together, and I 
was hoping that I might’ve been able to crack it open without needing to 
hot glue it back together (ugh, my glue gun chops are awful!).


But… I did take a peek at the 256Kb IC cards and sure enough, there’s 
not only a battery compartment that easily unscrewed, but also an on/off 
switch! Pretty cool stuff, so I took some more photos and added two 
slides into the PDF (pages 12 and 13, in particular). This also shows 
the other 32Kb IC card I have (sure enough, it initialized and works!).


This should be a direct link to the updated PDF with the additional 
photos, for convenience (if this doesn’t work, the link to the folder is 
in the thread, below):


http://www.club100.org/memfiles/index.php?action=downloadfile=Gold 
 Card 7.10 
Photos and 1988 Review.pdf=Steve Baker&

Next for me with the Goldmine (clearly, I like giving things nicknames) 
is in the software; I'd like to figure out more about the ROM Eliminator 
feature chronicled in the article (slide 17). Might they have a 
precursor to REX? While mine is probably not the industrial interface 
($100 option) perhaps the ability to save and restore Option ROMs is 
available?


Onward we go,
SB


--
Greetings from Steve Baker
“Gravity brings me down…”



On Jan 11, 2021, at 6:54 PM, Brian White > wrote:


I would never ask to break something.

If it has screws or obvious snaps, and you're comfy then fine, 
otherwise don't think one second about it.


Thanks for dumping the rom and the pics.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 5:07 PM Steve Baker > wrote:


From Brian K. White:


Could you look a little more at the cards?
Do they come apart to see the board inside?
Is the battery permanent or a removable coin cell?

Does the main unit with the sockets come apart to see that board?


Good questions and thoughts @Brian thanks for your follow-up with
this! In the next day or two I’ll poke around a little bit. I’m a
bit squeamish to crack open stuff, not for fear of discovery but
for fear of naively breaking brittle rare stuff! I’ll do my best
to do what I can (if I see something I can open and/and detach, I
certainly will!).

Whatever I’m able to learn on the hardware side, I’ll take
additional pictures and update the PDF (and post here letting you
and others know). I also happen to have a Tarjeta IC Card
MF3132-003T originally for Noritsu machines that I wanted to use
in my Tandy WP-2 (sadly, it doesn’t work) so I’ll see if it works
in this fella at all.


I love how thin the unit is.


Yes, the black plastic case is incredibly thin and I could see how
convenient it would be to have it affixed under the Model T
(especially if the user has two of those groovy little legs
installed as kick-stands of sorts). I’ll probably replace the
battery and caps on this particular T102, retr0brite the case, and
nickname it Goldmine. ;-)

Cheers,
SB

--
Greetings from Steve Baker
“Gravity brings me down…”




On Jan 11, 2021, at 1:17 PM, Brian K. White mailto:b.kenyo...@gmail.com>> wrote:

This is very cool.

Could you look a little more at the cards?
Do they come apart to see the board inside?
Is the battery permanent or a removable coin cell?

Does the main unit with the sockets come apart to see that board?

I love how thin the unit is.

-- 
bkw



On 1/10/21 5:25 PM, Steve Baker wrote:

Thanks! Yep, it’s very well-built and I’m looking forward to
digging into it once I (finally) put together my MVT100 kit that
you sent me months ago! (I’m perhaps too cautious…)
By chance, is Mo still associated with King Computer Services
(that’s one of the companies mentioned in the credits screen)? I
sent an email to them and attached the PDF too.
https://www.kingcomputerservices.com/contact.htm

>
It’d be great to learn more about the history of this project,
how long it was on the market, if the manuals are available