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Re: Got myself a Tiger Learning Computer today



On 9/3/2010 3:30 AM, schmidtd wrote:
On Sep 3, 12:13 am, BLuRry<brendan.rob...@gmail.com>  wrote:
On Sep 2, 8:56 pm, schmidtd<schmi...@my-deja.com>  wrote:



On Sep 2, 7:28 am, schmidtd<schmi...@my-deja.com>  wrote:

On Sep 2, 1:21 am, BLuRry<brendan.rob...@gmail.com>  wrote:

On Aug 31, 9:32 pm, schmidtd<schmi...@my-deja.com>  wrote:

On Aug 31, 5:37 pm, BLuRry<brendan.rob...@gmail.com>  wrote:

On Aug 31, 9:47 am, "bill.mart...@gmail.com"<bill.mart...@gmail.com>
wrote:

On Aug 31, 10:45 pm, "sfahey"<sfa...@a2central.com.remove-trg-this>
wrote:

   To: bill.mart...@gmail.com
   Re: Re: Got myself a Tiger Learning Computer today
   By: bill.mart...@gmail.com to comp.sys.apple2 on Tue Aug 31 2010 03:47 am

  >  The only other one I have seen is the one Ed Eastman brought to KFest
  >  2003.  Maybe he has a bit more of a clue on how the beast works and
  >  can help you out.

Jay Edwards, not Ed Eastman.

http://www.gamebits.net/gallery/kfest/2003/source/29.html

Sean Faheywww.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com

Thanks for correcting me Sean.   My memory is getting a bit hazy these
days.

Can you get to the monitor?  If so, might want to have a look from
c200 to c2ff -- also see if accessing that memory range does any
bankswitching of c800-cfff -- could be some buried treasure in the
rom.
If not, I can send you a short routine to key-in just to blast out a
test message.

@Sean - I got in touch with Jay, thanks.

@B - Yep, you get full access to the machine.  Firmware in c200-c2ff
is identical to AppleWin's in the same slot.  No telling what the
hardware is doing behind the scenes, though.  I forgot to check if
c8xx changes on c2xx access... will have to do that another time.

I keyed in a modified Apple /// grub bootstrapper, just to see if it
would recognize incoming serial characters - it did not, based on my
assumptions:
0) Port is set to 9600,n,8,1 by default and embedded COM program
1) Standard SSC ACIA hardware addresses in slot 2
2) The serial port is the male DE-9 connector
3) You need a null modem between the TLC and the Real World

I recommend having it blast out the same series of characters over and
over -- then on the real world side keep adjusting the serial port
parameters until you get the correct data over the wire.  You could
probably write a small assembler loop like the following:

loop1 ldy #'A'
loop2 lda ACIA_STATUS
          bit #CLEAR TO SEND MASK  (forgot that one off the top of my
head)
          beq loop2
(note: you could replace the polling above with some other function
that takes 55 cycles to finish, in the case of 115200 baud.  For
slower speeds, double/triple that, etc)
          sty ACIA_DATA
          cpy #'Z'
          beq loop1
          bne loop2

Something like that anyway

Yep, perfect - I can muck about with that to see if it's trying to
send anything.  And I'll check with a voltmeter first to see if
anything ends up on the wire in the first place... ;-)

I'm not convinced the serial port is viable on my machine.  I get the
normal status out of the status register when nothing's attached, but
when I hook up the other side via a null modem, the status doesn't
change (at all) the way other SSC machines do.  So, lots of tweaks to
the configuration registers later, I still don't have anything coming
out the wire.

I pulled the top off the machine - lots of custom logic (and trace
wires...), but no big juicy 6551 to replace. :-(

Anything that resembles traces to a tape or joystick port?

Tiger is very unlike Apple - their boards are not labeled with human
friendly markings.  But there is a joystick port - I was thinking this
was IIc-based, but maybe it's IIe - and I can use NadaNet!

That would be very cool--but it will also need at least one annunciator
output...(only on the 16-pin game port).

-michael

NadaNet 3.1 for Apple II parallel computing!
Home page:  http://home.comcast.net/~mjmahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it's seriously underused."