Looking for a terminal program

Looking for a Dragon or CoCo game not already in the archive - Then request it here and hopefully it will either be uploaded to the archive or another member can upload it to this forum.
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Rolo
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Re: Looking for a terminal program

Post by Rolo »

I'm aware of that, but I'am understanding this differently.
In my opinion, I can configure the drive to respond as floppy 0 and floppy 1 simultaneously. But both drives logically end up on the same floppy file on the SD-card. If that file is a one-sided/single density file, you gain no more than telling FLEX 'ASN,s0,w0' (system disk is disk0, working disk is disk0). You can not assign two logical floppy-files on the SD-card to two logical drives in the HxC. That's my believe :) .
I think, if I want to work with just one disk, it has to be a single "huge" disk.
But I had no time to play around with that. Maybe tomorrow.....
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robcfg
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Re: Looking for a terminal program

Post by robcfg »

I think you're wrong there, you can actually select two different disk files for every drive.

I'd suggest checking the jumper configuration and the HxC instructions.

Should there remain any question, Jeff, the author of the hxc software, is a super nice guy and will answer as soon as possible.
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Rolo
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Re: Looking for a terminal program

Post by Rolo »

Ohh..., Rob, I think you have a point here :oops:. My old manual of the external, cased HxC emulator, did not describe the "indexed mode", like this is done in the new "slim" model's manual, you showed. But I hope, the indexed mode is working on my older version, too. Thanks for pointing me to that.
I had not enough time, but I observed, that my emulator, really goes into a different mode, when I'm checking the indexed mode box in the config. After renaming the floppy-file of the system disk to DSKA0000.HFE my Dragon boots Flex. The CHATPLUS-DSK, converted and renamed to DSKB0000.HFE is not recognized at the moment. Maybe the HFE-envelope around the ".dsk"-file causes some trouble or my jumper-settings are not right.
I'll keep on trying.....
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Rolo
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Re: Looking for a terminal program

Post by Rolo »

I did some firmware upgrade, systematically checked all possible jumper positions and got the concept now. I really can emulate two drives with two different image-files now (what they call "indexed mode"). Also with my Rev. C emulator board.
I can boot FLEX on disk 0 (DSKA0000.HFE), but FLEX does NOT recognize CHATPLUS_DSK.HFE (DSKB0000.HFE). I think the HxC converter program is not working right for that file. The FLEX-extension ".dsk" is used by many systems, it's not unique.
FLEX disks have a specialty:
Track 0 starts with sector 0 (directory), has no sector 1, goes on with sector 2,3 ... 9.
Tracks 1 to 39 start with sector 1 and go on regularly up to 9.

The hexdump of the "chatplus.dsk" file shows no disk geometry information at all, just user-data. In consequence the HxC converter program generates a standard disk with 40 tracks, sectors 1 to 9 each. Now when FLEX is looking for tr.0/sect.0 to read the directory, it can not find a sector 0. The disk is not valid.

As far as I understand, I can't simply rename tr.0/sect.1 to tr.0/sect.0 in the .hfe-file, since that format represents a pseudo-analog recording of the complete tracks, including the inter-sector information, like a sampled, sequential stream, with 2 to 3 sample values per magnetic bubble on the disk. I would have to do this with the help of some tools or better the floppy controller, which surely is possible, but I don't have a solution ready, at the moment. I'm not sure, if that format should be suggested on the HxC-website for future supplement, since there probably are no more than ten people on planet Earth, who really are using that. :?
sixxie
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Re: Looking for a terminal program

Post by sixxie »

I'm pretty sure HFE is just the raw MFM (or indeed FM) transition data at the clock rate specified in the header, IIRC 0 = no transition, 1 = transition. So not a sample as such.
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Rolo
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Re: Looking for a terminal program

Post by Rolo »

Yes, you're right the WD279X wants a "negative pulse for each recorded flux transition" on it's !RAW READ line "directly from the drive" (datasheet). What I wanted to express, is that there is not a simple "sector count byte" in a header, that can be altered directly, but counting bits/transitions in the stream and finding the right position is required. More complicated.
The HxC Software has a Track Analyzer feature, which shows the stored values with "cell" resolution: for example track 0 sector 1 (only the user data part) consists of 8288 cells.
tjewell
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Re: Looking for a terminal program

Post by tjewell »

Hi again!

A few other leads have turned up on the Coco boards -

http://mymc10.tripod.com/compac.htm - a simple comms package, here for the MC10, but I think also used on the Coco. Looks like you could even buy a copy here! - http://thecocolounge.com/p443.html - although it looks like it's not well regarded - http://www.coco3.com/community/1987/03/ ... msg-24843/ (I mentioned Greg-E-Term in one of my first posts, but I still can't find a copy of it - I'll ask around!)

There's also Softlaw's VIP Terminal - http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coc ... 0Corp).pdf

But I don't think any of these come close to the VT52/kermit functionality you originally asked for.

Cheers,

Tony.
tjewell
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Re: Looking for a terminal program

Post by tjewell »

I know this is an old thread - is it really 4 years since we had this conversation? - but I've actually made some progress!

Since we first talked about this, I've got a CocoSDC - I put Flex v1.3.2 in the first drive, ChatPlus in the second, booted, did a "1.CHATPLUS.CMD" at the Flex prompt - and bob was my uncle! See attached picture number #1. I then set a baud rate of 1200, plugged in my little WIFI-modem and I'm online. This version of Chatplus seems quite primitive - seems like a very dumb terminal, not sure if it's actually emulating anything.

What I'd really love is to get access to some of the Viewdata services out there (telnet glasstty.com:6502), and I see that Compusense are advertising a Viewdata program for the D64 in April 1986 - https://archive.org/details/dragon-user ... 36/page/n1 - but I don't see it in the archive. Anyone got it?

The other option is to get the Peaksoft cart going (you can see it in the second picture) - I know that's got Viewdata software in it (I've dumped it here - viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5721 ), but it's not designed to work with D64's serial. Or at least, I don't think it is. A manual for that would be really useful!

Cheers in advance, Tony.
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bluearcus
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Telepost Systems Terminal Simulator

Post by bluearcus »

I unbundled Telepost System's Terminal Simulator cartridge for the Dragon 64 into just an ordinary OS9 application that can be run from disk.

It's here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5781

The original ROM cartridge image is attached. I can't locate it in the Archive, so not sure if it's there yet...
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TermSim.rom
Telepost Systems Terminal Simulator Cartridge
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KenH
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Re: Looking for a terminal program

Post by KenH »

@Tony
Can you share the pinout for your D64 serial cable?
Also, what other terminal software can be used with the WiFi modem?
I am trying to connect the OldNet WiFi modem but cannot transmit any data (only receiving the modem startup message)
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