Completed 8800b 2.0.4 Pro

[Charley Jones]

Completed the build of my 2.0.4 Pro 8800b.  She’s a thing of beauty. Opted to leave the top off for access, which made it easier to install the front panel.  

Dave had put some beautiful touches on this kit, like the protective tray for the arduino and the gorgeous S100 buss. 

It’s been said that busses always have a number of slots as a multiple of base 2.  Makes sense.  But Dave kills that theory with 5 cards.  And beautiful they are.

Dataman in Las Vegas 

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Where's the pictures?  

.

[Tom Lake]

I hot glued the square nuts into place so I can remove the top whenever I want without fiddling around with falling nuts.

Do you have the floppy drive interface? If so, have you tried it without a floppy drive plugged into it? Mine locks up when I do that and try to boot an OS.
BTW, I can't seem to see your photos.

[Charley Jones]

IOS 16 is acting weird I think.  Still no pictures in this thread?

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 3, 2022, at 12:20 PM, Tom Lake <tl...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:

I hot glued the square nuts into place so I can remove the top whenever I want without fiddling around with falling nuts.

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[Charley Jones]

Got a barf on email size.  

Will post separately.

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 3, 2022, at 12:20 PM, Tom Lake <tl...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:

I hot glued the square nuts into place so I can remove the top whenever I want without fiddling around with falling nuts.

--

[Charley Jones]

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 3, 2022, at 12:29 PM, Charley Jones <data...@gmail.com> wrote:



[tl...@twcny.rr.com]

Now I’m getting them!  

 

From: Charley Jones <data...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, October 3, 2022 3:29 PM
To: Tom Lake <tl...@twcny.rr.com>
Cc: Altair-Duino <altair...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Completed 8800b 2.0.4 Pro

 

Got a barf on email size.  

Will post separately.

 

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 3, 2022, at 12:20 PM, Tom Lake <tl...@twcny.rr.com> wrote:

I hot glued the square nuts into place so I can remove the top whenever I want without fiddling around with falling nuts.

Do you have the floppy drive interface? If so, have you tried it without a floppy drive plugged into it? Mine locks up when I do that and try to boot an OS.
BTW, I can't seem to see your photos.

On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 1:46:35 PM UTC-4 data...@gmail.com wrote:

Completed the build of my 2.0.4 Pro 8800b.  She’s a thing of beauty. Opted to leave the top off for access, which made it easier to install the front panel.  

 

Dave had put some beautiful touches on this kit, like the protective tray for the arduino and the gorgeous S100 buss. 

 

It’s been said that busses always have a number of slots as a multiple of base 2.  Makes sense.  But Dave kills that theory with 5 cards.  And beautiful they are.

 

 

 

Dataman in Las Vegas 

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

[Charley Jones]

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 3, 2022, at 12:29 PM, Charley Jones <data...@gmail.com> wrote:



[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

On my Altair-Duino Pro computers, I simply removed the top back screw and nut so that I can gently lift the top off the computer when needed.  Since I don't expect an earth shattering meteor to shake gravity so much to flip the lid off the computer, and it's not on a rocket ship that has little motors to alter directions, I feel basic gravity can old the lid in place very nicely.  

I don't see any future need for that one screw and nut to glue it in place or fix it somewhere else in or on the computer.  

.

[Charley Jones]

Seems that the top is staying on nicely without the 3 retainer screws.  I want access to the card bay anyhow. 

I’m not so happy about loosing the VT100 by hooking up WiFi.  I’m thinking I’ll be happier with a dongle that plugs into the serial port, still based on the ESP8266, or variant. Should be easy to cobble it together.

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 3, 2022, at 12:31 PM, Walt Perko <r4r...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, 

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[Chris Davis]

You can remove the SP3232 from the expansion card and install an ESP-01s, then use the jumpers to select pins A6/A7.

https://adwaterandstir.com/2021/01/23/use-telnet-over-wifi/#hardware2 

[Thomas Runge]

Do I understand correctly that if you choose option three in https://adwaterandstir.com/2021/01/23/use-telnet-over-wifi/#hardware2 to wire the ESP-01 to the RX/TX LEDs, we have  VT100, DB9 and Wifi capability, just as it was possible with the 1.5.2 board?

Quote: "If you would like to wire the ESP-01s to the RX/TX LEDs on the Arduino, you can do so and connect the RX LED to the center pin of JP4 and the TX LED to the center pin of JP5. Instructions for connecting to the RX/TX LEDs are in the secton above."

[Chris Davis]

Yes, you can have all three.  The version 2.0 board just has solder points so you don't have to solder directly to the ESP-01s.

[Charley Jones]

That’s a bit more palpable than losing the VT100. 

Maybe there is an option 4. I cobbled this together as sort of a WiFi Dongle.  cant see anything yet from the serial port.  Maybe the 3v3 isn’t strong enough to trigger the serial port or I didn’t tie out all the control lines.  (I’m driving the serial port directly from the esp01.)  I have a serial tester coming today though.  The ESP01 is responding to debug window on pc and is getting 3v3 power… 

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 7, 2022, at 6:51 AM, Chris Davis <famousd...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, you can have all three.  The version 2.0 board just has solder points so you don't have to solder directly to the ESP-01s.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/altair-duino/6a75ebd8-d99c-4b80-a139-88143cd223fdn%40googlegroups.com.

[Thomas R.]

Is there any benefit compared to connecting the ESP-01 to RX/TX on the Arduino?

OK, soldering a wire to the Arduino's LEDs is not the fanciest solution, but it's fairly easy to do. And it's easier with the 2.0.4 board than it was with the 1.5.2, given the additional jumpers...

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[Charley Jones]

Well, the dongle would be non invasive.  It’s also relocatable to my other devices.  I have 3 Altair’s, a Dec-8, and a Dec-11, all begging for a dongle solution. 

I’m a little concerned that bare signal wires might cause some hysteresis effects, but I’ll probably go the LED route if the dongle doesn’t pan out.  

Trying  the control resistors this weekend.  If it pans out, I will create a board. 

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 7, 2022, at 9:21 AM, Thomas R. <samoht...@gmail.com> wrote:



[Thomas R.]

Looking forward to read about your results.

It'll be some time before I will get my 8800b built. Wifi can even wait a little longer... 😁

[Charley Jones]

Well, some progress on my Wifi Dongle.

I can connect the ESP01 to the programmer and inspect the message from the serial debug window from Arduino Studio.

192.168.0.42, got it.

On my Mac Monterey, I installed talent from home-brew.

telnet 192.168.0.42

Turn on the Altair, A1 Up, DEP UP, Power On.

Release DEP.

Well, it’s something at least.

This looks like a serial mismatch to me.

I get a scroll of characters.

The, if I turn off the Altair, it stops.

My questions to the group are:

I’m driving the serial port from the ESP01,

That’s 3.3V, 

Is that enough to drive the serial port?

I connected grounds all the way through,

I believe that was correct.

I filtered the 3.3v transformer.

<image0.jpeg><image0.jpeg>

[Chris Davis]

Are you connecting the ESP-01s directly to pins 2 & 3 on the DE9 connector?  If so, you're going to want something like the MAX3232 module to convert the serial signals to TTL.

[Charley Jones]

Yup, that’s what I figured. 

 Thanks for confirming. 

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 7, 2022, at 1:20 PM, Chris Davis <famousd...@gmail.com> wrote:

Are you connecting the ESP-01s directly to pins 2 & 3 on the DE9 connector?  If so, you're going to want something like the MAX3232 module to convert the serial signals to TTL.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/altair-duino/4f9e6865-f419-462a-a63f-fd6b550f0cb2n%40googlegroups.com.

[Charley Jones]

Well, the saga continues.

Found this MAX3232 device in my tool drawers.

A little rewiring….

Just a proof of concept, I’ll be cleaning this up more.

Looks better, blank screen until I hit Aux 1 down, then garbage.

Repeating test, it’s def the output of all Address down, Aux 1 down.

Well, definitely progress…

The comm board states RS3232-TTL BJ-166

The chip of the RS232 board states MAX3232 CSE + ON17

If I had to hazard a guess I’d say 4x .1uf caps.

I have another set of max3232 boards coming today.

That, and I do have a MAX232 Chip, 5v on hand.

So, does this MAX3232 have enough juice to talk to the serial port?

On Oct 7, 2022, at 1:28 PM, Charley Jones <data...@gmail.com> wrote:

Yup, that’s what I figured. 

 Thanks for confirming. 

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 7, 2022, at 1:20 PM, Chris Davis <famousd...@gmail.com> wrote:

Are you connecting the ESP-01s directly to pins 2 & 3 on the DE9 connector?  If so, you're going to want something like the MAX3232 module to convert the serial signals to TTL.

On Friday, October 7, 2022 at 2:42:15 PM UTC-5 data...@gmail.com wrote:

Well, some progress on my Wifi Dongle.

I can connect the ESP01 to the programmer and inspect the message from the serial debug window from Arduino Studio.

192.168.0.42, got it.

On my Mac Monterey, I installed talent from home-brew.

telnet 192.168.0.42

Turn on the Altair, A1 Up, DEP UP, Power On.

Release DEP.

Well, it’s something at least.

This looks like a serial mismatch to me.

I get a scroll of characters.

The, if I turn off the Altair, it stops.

[Chris Davis]

>So, does this MAX3232 have enough juice to talk to the serial port?

It always has.  That module was included with the old bamboo case Altair-Duino for the first couple years.  I still use them in projects occasionally.

If you're using the ESP-01s software David wrote and I modified, then the default is 9600 baud.  Do you have your serial out set to 9600?  You can see the ESP-01s settings at http://192.168.0.42.  

[Charley Jones]

Just did a loop back test on the dongle alone and it’s clean. 
Telnet 192.168.0.42

TEST 

Thanks for the advice on http://192.168.0.42

I can seen 9600 8 N 1

Building up a second device (much cleaner). 

Will test that next. 

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

On Oct 8, 2022, at 1:16 PM, Charley Jones <data...@gmail.com> wrote:

Well, from the Altair 2.0 Assembly and operations, page 33, … communicate on serial port 2 at 9600 baud.

So I know that side is 9600

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/altair-duino/d3c6615f-7a71-438e-af0e-995ab194f111n%40googlegroups.com.

[data...@gmail.com]

Ordered 25 boards from China, ran about 6.50$.

Of course, even after 6 revisions, you still find something to fix.

We will see in about 2 weeks.

Charley Jones, PMP

A+ MCP MOUS MCSE MCSA MCAD MCDBA MCITP MCTS MCT ITIL PMP

Founder: S3olv.com, LVXUG.com, SynShop.org, SMTboards.Com

Website: CRJones.Com

On Oct 8, 2022, at 5:50 PM, Charley Jones <data...@gmail.com> wrote:

Just did a loop back test on the dongle alone and it’s clean. 

[data...@gmail.com]

Board 1: esp01 with a 3.3v regulator 

Board 2: use an esp8266mini and ditch the regulator

Charley Jones, PMP

A+ MCP MOUS MCSE MCSA MCAD MCDBA MCITP MCTS MCT ITIL PMP

Founder: S3olv.com, LVXUG.com, SynShop.org, SMTboards.Com

Website: CRJones.Com

On Oct 13, 2022, at 8:34 AM, data...@gmail.com wrote:

Ordered 25 boards from China, ran about 6.50$.