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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

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Old 4th Dec 2021, 9:27 pm   #1
Phil__G
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Default Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

Hi all,
Before re-inventing the wheel thought I should check with everyone whether this has already been done, I have looked but not seen anything...

As a committed retrobate I've several small computers into which programs are loaded via the console port. This could be Intel hex, Motorola S19 records or even BASIC programs in straight ASCII text format. Sometimes (like my Cosmac Elf) its a short, streamed 8-bit binary file.
Consequently I need to make a little standalone device which stores and replays TTL serial ASCII text on an SD card or USB stick (CH376S etc), lets me choose which one to spool in or out using a menu on an OLED or LCD, probably hosted on an Arduino. This seems such a useful device that surely it must have been done already. Its not a cassette replacement like the TXDuino, there are no tape protocols other than the baudrate & 8/N/1 etc, its just straight text (or streamed bytes). I've thought maybe Openlog which almost does the job (and very cheaply), but would need extra support to make it standalone with a display & keypad etc.
Its not a complex project by any stretch but to save time, does anyone have any pointers or links, or is this (surely not!) a new project?
Ta very much
Phil

Last edited by Phil__G; 4th Dec 2021 at 9:37 pm.
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Old 4th Dec 2021, 11:50 pm   #2
Timbucus
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

Nothing I have seen like that - sounds a great idea though - I could use it on the Triton KB for typing in BASIC as you say - you would need to allow the inter character and inter line delays to be simply programmable - maybe even stored as part of the filename or custom extensions?
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Old 5th Dec 2021, 3:02 am   #3
SiriusHardware
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

Most terminal programs have the companion features 'ASCII Capture' which will allow you to open a named file and then capture everything the terminal receives subsequently until you turn capture off again, and also 'ASCII Send' which allows you to open a text file and send its contents out through the serial port.

The latter feature usually, as Tim suggests, allows you to fine-control the spacing between lines and characters to suit the device which is being sent to.

I don't think you need a specific or bespoke bit of software to do this, just a terminal program with the right feature set.

In Hyperterminal, bundled with most versions of Windows and still runnable under the newest ones, these features are found as

Transfer \ Capture Text

and

Transfer \ Send Text File (Not 'Send File')

I appreciate you were looking for something standalone, but does an 11" Netbook count? What about a Raspberry Pi with an LCD touchscreen?

Last edited by SiriusHardware; 5th Dec 2021 at 3:16 am.
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Old 5th Dec 2021, 11:20 am   #4
Phil__G
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

Hi yes I use Teraterm which has 'log to file' and 'file send' etc (as demo'd in the PICL, Elf & GS32k videos etc) but I really want a stand-alone recorder/player.
I bought a cheap S/H netbook which I do use for terminal & file xfer duties but I really want a pocket recorder
If (as it seems) this is not already a thing, I'm thinking its the next project so if it works I'll report back!
I really think the Pi is too clever for me, but I'm fluent with Arduino stuff, so... onward!
Cheers
Phil

Last edited by Phil__G; 5th Dec 2021 at 11:29 am.
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Old 5th Dec 2021, 11:54 am   #5
Phil__G
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

(initially I just wanted it for the SWTPC clone, made to look like the SWTPC AC-30, but then realised how useful it would be elsewhere)

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/u...duct-94549.jpg
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Old 5th Dec 2021, 12:25 pm   #6
SiriusHardware
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

You could find yourself a Psion Organiser II or III.

Genuinely Palmtop sized, self contained and independently powered. both have terminal programs which will do the job but the II requires a specific plug-in serial interface / cable and the III probably requires something similar so you'd need to be sure that any unit on offer came with those things.

I have used my Psion II to upload Intel Hex files to some custom receiving code that I wrote for a college micro system, obviously quite some time ago now but it worked nicely.

If you are determined to use an Arduino then I suppose the SD card library and LCD libraries would be a good place to start since you'll need somewhere for the files to come from / go to, and some way to see / choose which 'track' a given item will be played from or recorded to.

I suspect that this might suffer from feature creep, and what you will eventually end up with will be a self contained serial terminal with the ability to capture and replay ASCII as one of its features. Does anyone make a plug in RS232 serial interface for Android or Apple devices, I wonder? If so, maybe one of those plus a matching app on a phone would do the trick.
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Old 5th Dec 2021, 12:38 pm   #7
SiriusHardware
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

Further to the above, it appears that if an Android device supports USB Host mode you can plug an OTG (On The Go?) USB adaptor into that and then a USB-To-RS232 cable into that, and that's the hardware sorted.

There is apparently a "USB Serial For Android" library, but you may find that someone has already written a fully featured serial terminal App for Android, I didn't get that far.
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Old 5th Dec 2021, 1:27 pm   #8
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

Quote:
Arduino then I suppose the SD card library and LCD libraries would be a good place to start
LCD touchscreen with SD card slot is available as a "Shield" (plug in hat type thing) as is a "proper" 9 pin D serial thing.
 
Old 5th Dec 2021, 1:34 pm   #9
Phil__G
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

For convenience I'll probably go with a USB stick rather than SD, through a ch376s - I've used 376's before and they work well. On the other hand I'd like to make a PCB for it as small as poss and the 376 is a bit chunky
Either way, to receive at 115200 it will need all unused memory for a big serial buffer
'Shields' are way too big for my liking, when I say 'arduino' I really mean a 328P on a small custom pcb, developed in the arduino IDE

Last edited by Phil__G; 5th Dec 2021 at 1:45 pm.
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Old 9th Dec 2021, 12:55 am   #10
NealCrook
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

Hi Phil,
what I learned from my NASCAS project is that writing to SDcards (and probably USB) is somewhat undeterministic due to the software layer between your code and the storage device (buffering and file-system), and then the software layer on the storage device itself (eg, block buffering and wear levelling).
Unless there's flow control on the serial interface to the Vintage Equipment (VE) writes to the VE are reliable but reads from the VE (storing to your storage device) can be intermittently unreliable, so you need a way to detect and report that.
As you know, I used an arduino NANO for that design. One cool feature is that you can connect the USB to a host PC and get a USB->serial "console" conversion for free (sorry, SiriusHardware was correct about the temptation for feature creep...)

Neal
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Old 9th Dec 2021, 4:12 pm   #11
Phil__G
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

Hi Neal, the plan is to use a 23LC1024 128k x 8 buffer, stream incoming to SRAM and only at the end-of-file start writing to a USB stick or an SD card.
That way it can happily receive at 115200 with no handshaking, then the actual write can take as long as it takes
Can't believe how cheap they are, a 23LC1024 is £1.78 from RS!
The basic idea is a magic paper-tape punch & reader. Hopefully
Cheers
Phil
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Old 9th Dec 2021, 8:49 pm   #12
NealCrook
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

>>The basic idea is a magic paper-tape punch & reader.
Oooh! Will there be sound-effects?
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Old 10th Dec 2021, 7:03 pm   #13
Timbucus
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

Quote:
Originally Posted by NealCrook View Post
>>The basic idea is a magic paper-tape punch & reader.
Oooh! Will there be sound-effects?
Oh yes a small sounder and DAC to play punch sounds as it records and chuttering as it reads - please please please...
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Old 10th Dec 2021, 7:47 pm   #14
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Default Re: Straight serial ASCII recorder/player?

In times-past I bought things like Psion Organisers and Apple Newtons for our field-service guys; these were great because they had various V.24 [and even V.35!] connection-addons that meant you could carry around with you all the Cisco router and Nortel switch configurations appropriate to your territory, and save/reload configs as necessary.

Though I must admit, doing a firmware-refresh via the serial-port [using X/YMODEM] was a bit of a drag.
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