[Coco] CoCo-to-PC Serial Cable diagram

[jmlaw at iprimus.com.au]

Thanks heaps for the new image, much appreciated.

Sorry for the delay in reply, my ISP's POP server isn't working at the moment
so I've logged into webmail to check and reply to emails.

I had a DB-9 connector from an old project I was planning to make a Keyboard-Monitor-Mouse
switch to use two computers with the one set of peripherals, that was before
I found out you could by them lol.

I also had a CoCo printer cable sent to me with some other CoCo stuff, so
I cut one end off for the DIN 4 plug and used CAT-5E data cable between the
DB-9 and DIN 4.

I wired it wrong the first time I did it because I was looking at the pin
numbering of a male DB-9, no wonder that didin't work lol.

It now works great for DriveWire, but haven't tried it for CoCoNet yet as
I'm looking to see if I can assemble the code the make the ROM file into
a BIN file that I can put to a .wav file. Any suggestions on how to do that,
of it's even possible would be great :)

I'll need to buy another DB-9 connector and I'll make the other bit banger
cable up per your diagram and compare the two. Though I may have a cable
around here somewhere that has a DB9 connector on it, from an old null modem
cable.

Good idea about buying the 6ft DB-9 cable and just cutting it in half :)

I also tried FTP in DriveWire, it almost does it, but gives an access denied
error to writing the file to the temporary internet folder. HTTP might work,
I haven't tried that yet.

I'd setup a website about a month or so ago www.coco3tools.com and as I get
spare time, I'll upload bits and pieces of useful development tools I've
come across and use. There's only a quick test page there at the moment,
but when I do get back to it, would you mind if I include you bit banger
cable image?

I'll also add links to your site for Rainbow IDE etc.

Speaking of Rainbow IDE, I was using it yesterday for an all ASM version
of the palette viewer and found that to change assemblers I had to close
the READOUT tab first or it would use the same assembler. Another idea is
to add a split window menu option. I know it's there just above the scrollbar,
but it took me ages to find it, but I persisted as I was really hoping it
had split window editing. Many people may not know it's there. The only other
thing I could think of to make it more user firndly was to allow the tabs
to be repositioned my clicking and draging them to the new position, like
you can do in excel for example. And a right click on the tab to close would
be handy too.

I'll definitely register this when I can get work again, it's an extremely
useful program :) I especially like the code snippets feature, very handy!

Ah, I just remembered one other idea...

I set up LWTOOLS for Rainbow IDE when I first tried it, and it works well.
A line at the top in uppercase showing which assmebler & version is used
would be good to, thought it does show the command line.

Also in the configuration box, I thought if you could add a section to the
lower part that allows custom labels and check boxes etc that could be configured
in the assmebler's config.ini file, this would allow assemblers to have all,
or most, options available at the click of a checkbox.

They're all just suggestions, maybe they're not practical to implement etc,
but any feedback is good, as it may lead you to another idea that does work
:)

I'll have a think about which is the best way to go with the CoCoNet EPROM
and get back to you on that when I have some cash and you're not so busy.
Great to see CoCo users are ordering your products :)

Thanks again for the cable image and info :)



>-- Original Message --
>Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:44:17 -0600
>To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>From: Roger Taylor <operator at coco3.com>
>Subject: [Coco] CoCo-to-PC Serial Cable diagram
>Reply-To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>
>
>
>Compliments from me, here is a diagram showing how to build a 
>CoCo-to-PC cable using an affordable cable from 
>CableWholesale.com.  It's a female-to-female cable you can cut in the 
>middle to make two cables, but if their one-ended cable has the same 
>color coding, you can use it instead.  I cut mine to get two cables 3 
>feet each.  They sell 10 and 25ft versions as well in the female-female
model.
>I'll have to search my records for where I bought my lot of CoCo DIN 
>plugs.  I have a lot of these if anybody wants to save some time and 
>just get them from me.
>
>You have 3 wires to solder to the DIN plug, and 2 sets of wires to 
>connect together to force PC handshaking.  I tuck those wires down so 
>the DIN plug casing slides up over them.  First solder and seal them, 
>of course.  You can probably think of another way of doing this, but 
>you can't get inside the DB9 end of these cables, so this is the 
>method I chose and it works well.
>
>I'm making a few cables now for overdue orders but I doubt I'll have 
>time to make any new ones until I get caught up on the Drive Pak 
>orders.  However, I have plenty of the DB9 cables and DIN plugs available.
>
>Let me know if you see any problems, as I drew this from looking at 
>my own cable.  I can't find my cheat sheet right now so I just made 
>another one with color coding for the cable (10D1-034xx) where xx is 
>the feet (01, 03, 06, 10, 25).
>
>Have fun,
>Roger Taylor
>
>Attachment: coco_to_pc_cable.gif
>
>-- 
>~ Roger Taylor
>
>
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