[Coco] Repair techs (subject line spelling fixed)

[gene heskett]

On Monday, March 26, 2012 09:54:03 PM Bill did opine:

> Are there any repair techs out there? I have a RS232 Pak that was put
> INSIDE a Coco3, but when I check it out, it doesn't work. I've tried
> the 'EXEC &HE010' (I'm running a 512K Coco3), but it doesn't work.
> 
The eprom in it has likely been disabled, probably 95% of those wound up in 
os9 systems where we had driver software that was megatons better that that 
teletext terminal that is in the eprom.

It could even have been removed as it was not an item worth salvaging to 
most of us os9 users where we had either supercomm or Vt-100/vt-220 
available as a full blown terminal program, both with auto zmodem starting 
in their latest incarnations.  If it is actually still in the pack, the CE 
pin has probably been clipped to disable it since IIRC it was autoexec with 
the CE pin wired up. 

> Advice? Ideas?
> 
Run it with Nitros9.  Start an os9 shell by adding "shell i=/t2 &" (without 
the quotes of course) in the startup file & hook the seriel port to a pc.  
If the pc is running linux, start a session of minicom, configure it to use 
the serial port.  If you get the speeds & linefeed diffs sorted, you can 
then run the coco from the pc.  Which will prove hardware of the pack is 
ok.  I do exactly that, at 9600 baud, here quite often.

There may be other possibility's to check since the rs -0232 pack had a 
small 5 volt to +-12 volt inverter in it to power the line driver/receiver 
chips.  Some of those have smoked from old age by now, including mine, so 
it was then repaired to operate on the + and - 12 volts available in the 
MPI.  The coco doesn't supply those without mods.

> Thanks
> 
> 
> --
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> Coco at maltedmedia.com
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Cheers, Gene
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