Renee@cup.portal.com (Renee Linda Roberts) (04/30/91)
I got one of these, and have some questions for someone with knowledge of the internals. If you have said knowledge, please contact me via email. Thanks! Renee Renee@cup.portal.com
dan@i10s4.ira.uka.de (Dan Mosedale) (04/30/91)
In article <41818@cup.portal.com> Renee@cup.portal.com (Renee Roberts) writes: >I got one of these, and have some questions for someone with knowledge of >the internals. If you have said knowledge, please contact me via email. I just bought myself a Portfolio this past week. Nice little toy. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do much with it, as my serial interface seems to be dead. I do plan on writing some assembler programs _on_ and _for_ the Portfolio (don't have a PC at all). Eventually some games, I hope. In any case, I have also bought a fairly good German book about the Portfolio internals, and how to program them, so I may be able to help you. According to another third party book, Atari Germany will supposedly support PF developers by selling them a Technical Reference manual, but I haven't looked into this yet. I decided to post, as I would like to see more traffic wrt the Portfolio here, and I hope you will do the same. BTW: on the off chance that my interface is dead, and I'm just doing something wrong, here's what's happening: I've been using a 9-to-25 AT cable to connect the PF to both a Sun SPARC and a PC (AT, I assume.. it's not mine). When I say COPY AUX CON on the PF I simply get a "Not Ready Error". Any help would be much appreciated... -Dan Mosedale -- -----schnippel-----cut_here-----reiss-----beiss_ab-----hau_wech-----fetz-----
akcs.jwtrav@hpcvbbs.UUCP (John Wettroth) (04/30/91)
I have had little luck with email but will try. If you have specific questions, call or write me if I am unsuccessful.
agodwin@acorn.co.uk (Adrian Godwin) (04/30/91)
In article <1991Apr29.205630.4696@ira.uka.de> dmose@bright.math.uoregon.edu writes: > >I just bought myself a Portfolio this past week. Nice little toy. >Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do much with it, as my serial >interface seems to be dead. I do plan on writing some assembler >programs _on_ and _for_ the Portfolio (don't have a PC at all). Shortly after the Portfolio came out, I spent a few hours with a group of friends trying to program it - the owner didn't have a serial interface, or any other way of connecting it to another machine. We wrote a hex loader (ASCII-hex digits in stdin, binary out to a file) using the text editor to write a .com file ... had to choose opcodes carefully because the text editor wouldn't accept all 256 byte values. An entrant for an obfuscated-assembler contest ? Then the owner went home and typed in all of MSDOS debug, as hex bytes into a file. He had to do it in chunks, because there wasn't enough file space for the binary file and the whole ascii-ised input file at the same time. When it was all typed in, he ran it ... and it crashed, losing all the files. So he typed it in again (patient man, this :-)) .... it responded with "Wrong DOS version" ! A few weeks later, he bought the serial lead. -adrian -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Adrian Godwin (agodwin@acorn.co.uk)
twmanino@taco.cc (TONY W MANINO) (04/30/91)
>BTW: on the off chance that my interface is dead, and I'm just doing >something wrong, here's what's happening: I've been using a 9-to-25 >AT cable to connect the PF to both a Sun SPARC and a PC (AT, I >assume.. it's not mine). When I say COPY AUX CON on the PF I simply >get a "Not Ready Error". Any help would be much appreciated... >-Dan Mosedale I have had a similar problem. My interface is fine, but I'm having file transfer woes. I do not yet have xterm on the Portfolio, but am feverishly trying. (I am the only local person with a Portfolio.) I wrote a short program on my Atari ST to transfer the file to the Portfolio, then did a "copy com1 xterm.com" on the portfolio. The problem comes in when the Portfolio reaches an ASCII 26 in the file (a CTRL-Z), indicating end of file. Of course, I don't get the whole file. I see 2 solutions: 1) Append an ASCII 26 to the end of the first part, then get the second part of xterm and append it, etc. (I have managed to produce a file containing an ASCII 26 only, but am unable to append it to the other. Any suggestions?) 2) Somehow transfer the whole file at once. The parallel interface does not work with my ST, therefore I didn't purchase one. On the append subject, I have tried "copy part1+part2 xterm.com" but the Portfolio doesn't support this option of the "copy" command. Ideas? Tony Manino twmanino@eos.ncsu.edu
dj1l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Demian A. Johnston) (05/01/91)
I don't have a portfolio but I know dos has a option that causes a binary copy. use a /b on one of the operands. Demian J. =======> dj1l+@andrew.cmu.edu
dan@i10s4.ira.uka.de (Dan Mosedale) (05/01/91)
In article <1991Apr30.133056.7176@ncsu.edu> twmanino@eos.ncsu.edu writes: >I have had a similar problem. My interface is fine, but I'm having file >transfer woes. I do not yet have xterm on the Portfolio, but am feverishly >trying. (I am the only local person with a Portfolio.) I wrote a short >program on my Atari ST to transfer the file to the Portfolio, then did a >"copy com1 xterm.com" on the portfolio. The problem comes in when the >Portfolio reaches an ASCII 26 in the file (a CTRL-Z), indicating end of >file. Of course, I don't get the whole file. > >I see 2 solutions: >... > In the portfolio archive on atari.archive.umich.edu (141.211.164.8) you can find an archive called pfboot.arc which is set up for a PC, but which may help you figure out how to transfer it over. -Dan dmose@bright.math.uoregon.edu -- -----schnippel-----cut_here-----reiss-----beiss_ab-----hau_wech-----fetz-----
dan@i10s4.ira.uka.de (Dan Mosedale) (05/02/91)
In article <4c7Ps0G00WBNE2IUlI@andrew.cmu.edu> dj1l+@andrew.cmu.edu (Demian A. Johnston) writes: >I don't have a portfolio but I know dos has a option that causes a >binary copy. use a /b on one of the operands. >Demian J. =======> dj1l+@andrew.cmu.edu Unfortunately this switch doesn't exist in DIP-DOS. (A v2.11 clone) -dmose -- -----schnippel-----cut_here-----reiss-----beiss_ab-----hau_wech-----fetz-----
rzv30@cccvm.ccc.amdahl.com (Rene Vega) (05/02/91)
Both on Compu$erve and on the Atari bbs you'll find the necessary programs that will help you bootstrap load in XTERM2. The simple hex loader program is called HEXBIN, and it can be loaded using the DIP DOS COPY command. The only trick is to load it at 300 baud. Once that's done, copy across the file XTERM2.HEX (at the same low baud rate, the nconvert it using HEXBIN. From that point on use XTERM2's xmodem capabilites. Good luck.. Rene' A. Vega Computer & Systems Architecture
akcs.scotty@hpcvbbs.UUCP (SCOTTY THOMPSON) (05/03/91)
Hi, I have one. I really like it. Thanks, John. I tweeked mine, though. I can now transmit and receive over four inches away--handy when I want to have my cable plugged-in. (Don't do it unless you want to void your warranty, though...)
akcs.jwtrav@hpcvbbs.UUCP (John Wettroth) (05/05/91)
Thanks scotty and renee. I have changed the value of a resistor in the design. I am characterizing the real distance. I think having the cable plugged in is a good goal. Thanks for the tip. Anyone else?