DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

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tormod
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Re: DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

Post by tormod »

pser1
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Re: DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

Post by pser1 »

Hello Ken,
finally I got a CoCo2's Multi-Pack, not modified for CoCo3 (verified) and it works great with the Dragon (well, I need a lot of times the Reset button, but is acceptable).
I put the Lafumat controller at slot 4, the multi-ROM package from Rolo at slot 3, the Starship Chameleon on slot2 and finally the WorkPad80x24 on slot 1
Everything runs except the WorkPad80.
I have a disk with the BAS and BIN you uploaded (DOS drivers, not NitrOS-9)
I run the basic program and it loads the .bin and execs it, but nothing appears on the TV screen.
I have the Dragon video output connected to my TV (at the SCART input) and a normal TV cable from the WorkPad to the aerial input of the same TV.
If I connect this cable to the TV output of my Dragon, I can see the image on channel 36.
After the EXEC command, I have made the TV scan all of the Analogic range and has not found any signal.
What should I do to get something sent to the TV from the WordPak cartridge?

thanks beforehand
regards
pere
KenH
Posts: 182
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2012 9:50 am

Re: DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

Post by KenH »

Hi pere,
The WordPak's video output is composite video (same as the Dragon's monitor output) and not RF.
You should connect it to your monitor's composite video input. If your monitor only has a SCART input you need a composite to SCART adapter.
Ken
Last edited by KenH on Thu May 29, 2014 8:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

Post by pser1 »

Some infor about that board:
Name: CoCo WordPak Rev1.0 2013 - CoCoDemus
The three configurable jumpers:
A1 has a bridge between 1 and 2
A2 has a bridge between 1 and 2
A3 has a bridge between 2 and 3

regards
pere
KenH
Posts: 182
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2012 9:50 am

Re: DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

Post by KenH »

Some monitors have overscan issues with the WordPak board resulting in a few missing columns on the left and/or right side.
The attached basic driver (source code and HDBDOS dsk image included) compensate for the overscan problem by creating left and right margins. The margin width can be adjusted using the LEFTMGN and RIGHTMGN EQU statements.

Don't forget to CLEAR 200,&H7D00
Attachments
wp-oscanfix.zip
wordpak basic driver with overscan fix
(3.01 KiB) Downloaded 235 times
Last edited by KenH on Thu May 29, 2014 9:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

Post by pser1 »

Great!
thanks for you help, Ken
I connected it the way it should have been done and it's very nice, despite I am losing a char at either side.
I will try the last driver you have included in your last post.
This really reminds me of my old DragonPlus board.
I will tell you the final results
regards
pere
pser1
Posts: 1655
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

Post by pser1 »

Hello,
the disk is in CoCo format (DSK 160K)
As it has just two files and the basic one is very short, I have just made a WAV file from $7D00-$7FFF after having loaded the bin file. I didn't know where was the end. The exec is $7D04 (from the included asm source). XRoar is of great help!
After loading it to the Dragon and saving to disk, I have run it and the screen is now just 73 chars width because of the defined margins (3 and 4)
It works pretty well, the only con is that on top of the screen and every time I make CLS, appears a line with a letter O then three spaces and a letter K
It seems that the screen-memory has the OK message that the Dragon sends to the screen after the EXEC command.
Will try it some more times to see what happens ...
Done. The same result each time I try.
As soon as I do exec &H7D04, the screen appears with the very first line like that:
O K and the cursor goes to the next line (due to the enter that Dragon sends after the OK message)
You can see that the letter O appears at the orignal left position, let's say column 1.
Then the letter K goes to the second position after having applied the new left margin, so it goes to the column 5
Keeping into account that now we have three char margin on the left (and four on the right) OK should have begun at column 4.
The most strange is that it shows these chars despite you enter CLS comands
It doesn't disturb, but it should not be like that, should it?
regards
pere
pser1
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Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 7:32 pm
Location: Barcelona (SPAIN)

Re: DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

Post by pser1 »

Hello,
a bit more info about that mod.
When I run a basic program that has as the very first line a CLS, and immediately there is a PRINT something, this text is displayed the same wrong way as the OK.
I mean that the first letter of the text is displayed at column1, but the rest goes from column 5 on.
If then you issue a CLS command, then the dreaded "O K" appears on top again!
regards
pere
KenH
Posts: 182
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2012 9:50 am

Re: DIY: 80 column WordPak board (CRT9128)

Post by KenH »

pser1 wrote:Hello,
a bit more info about that mod.
When I run a basic program that has as the very first line a CLS, and immediately there is a PRINT something, this text is displayed the same wrong way as the OK.
I mean that the first letter of the text is displayed at column1, but the rest goes from column 5 on.
If then you issue a CLS command, then the dreaded "O K" appears on top again!
regards
pere
Yes, I've noticed this bug in the basic driver too :?
I'll try to get rid of it once I have the time. I've uploaded the source so you can have a look yourself
Ken
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