bolton@cg-atla.UUCP (Lee Bolton) (06/07/89)
This is my first ever posting. So please bear with me.
I would like to do some word processing at home.
I would like to assemble a system fairly quickly, and I'm operating
on a frayed shoestring budget.
I have the remnants of an old machine long ago religated to the kid's room.
I also have a number of miscellaneous questions that various vendors have
been unable to answer.
I have:
An OLD (8 yrs +) Radio Shack Color Computer,
with a hacked in 64K upgrade and a homebuilt composite video adapter.
(this was originally an 'A' series machine, but was upgraded to a
series 'F' board by Radio Shack to cure the infamous "sparklies" bug.)
A Radio Shack 13 in. color television set.
A Color Computer 2 multipak interface.
A five year old J+M floppy disk controller. (JDOS installed)
1 TEAC 35 trk. and 2 Tandon 40 trk. floppy drives.
EDTASM+ version 1.0 in a ROM pack.
TSedit version 1.2 on disk.
I don't have:
a printer.
I also have:
A Wyse 50 terminal & a modem.(that's what I'm typing this on.)
Problem 1. I can't get a readable 80 character display on the TV. TSedit
uses a software hack (eg. pmode 4,0) to display 80 characters but with the
ghosting and the artifact colors, it's all mush. (By the way, I'm an old school
unix hacker so my editor of choice is either vi or emacs. I don't know of an
emacs work-alike that runs in 64K. So, I'd love to keep using TSedit if I
possibly can because it acts so much like vi.)
Problem 2. depending on how I resolve problem 1, I need to plug in a printer
somewhere. (I seem to remember that printers can be driven through the serial
'bit banger' port, but that that brings the machine to it's knees.)
Problem 3. I haven't touched this machine much for quite a while and don't
remember too much about it's internals and such and don't really want to.
Is there such a thing as a hardware enhancement to get an 80 column display?
I can get my hands on a VGA color monitor (analog..I think). Can I use it? how?
If I install OS9 level 1, is there a driver for my Wyse 50 terminal?
Is there anything like termcap/terminfo/printcap/printinfo under OS9?
Is there an editor or a word processor package that can use a dumb terminal
under OS9? (TSedit can't.)
I've heard mention of a plug-in pack for more than one 'real' RS232 port.
Are there OS9 drivers for that?
I may also be able to find some old ST506 hard drives. Are there any
Color Computer (OS9 or RSDOS) compatible controllers around for them?
How about SCSI controllers?
I wouldn't mind a moderate amount of slashing around (HW/SW) as long as it's
CHEAP. Even if I had to actually rtfm or something.
Any and All suggestions would be appreciated. thanks in advance.
--
R. Lee Bolton {uunet!ginosko,decvax,ulowell}!cg-atla!bolton
Agfa Compugraphic Corp. (508)-658-5600 X5461
200 Ballardvale St.
Wilmington, Mass. 01887 (If I see one more cute disclaimer...)knudsen@ihlpl.ATT.COM (Knudsen) (06/09/89)
Your situation is pretty good, mainly since you already have a Multi-Pak and three floppy drives. First, running printers out of the serial port does not load down the machine all that much. Second, the one piece of hardware you really need is a good old PBJ WordPak that plugs into a Multi-Pak slot and generates honest 80 columns. I and many other graduates to Coco-IIIs would be glad to sell you one cheap, including the software drivers. Third, whether you get a WordPak or just keep running TSEdit on its graphic 80 columns, you'll need to scarf up a monochrome monitor. Used, you should get by under $50; new, around $80. TV sets just don't hack it beyond games. Lucky for you someone has already added a monitor circuit to the old Coco. Old gray Cocos are very rugged and reliable, BTW. An analog color monitor could be hooked up just to the Green lead, depending on how the sync works. Sounds great for a Coco-III though. Fourth, you should pick up OS-9 Level 1 at a RadShack (or used) for $30 or so. TSEdit includes an OS9 version. I'd say never mind the hard disks at this time. If you decide to upgrade to a Coco III and Level 2, your existing hardware will still work. May have to hackyou multi-pak a bit. -- Mike Knudsen Bell Labs(AT&T) att!ihlpl!knudsen knudsen@ihlpl.att.com Round and round the while() loop goes; "Whether it stops," Turing says, "no one knows!"