New serial terminal

[da...@hansels.net]

Hi all,

I've been familiarizing myself with the Raspberry Pi Pico and trying to make something useful in the process.

The result is a new serial terminal that significantly improves on the two other serial terminals I have used/worked on (Geoff Graham's terminal and pigfx).

In case anyone is interested, see here:

https://github.com/dhansel/VersaTerm

David

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

The next thing needed is scripts to set the terminal to look like various printer paper colors and styles maybe.  

Is this restricted to 80 columns or can the display goto 132 columns?  

[Terry Fox]

I'd be interested in two boards it you make them available.  I already have several Picos laying around, looking to be used.

Terry

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

What's the spacing on the mounting holes?  75mm?  100mm?  to fit a VESA mounting bolt holes on the back of monitors/TVs?  

[Chris Davis]

That sounds great.  I've got a couple Picos I bought because they were cheap and I've done nothing with them.

[Charley Jones]

It’s a beautiful build Dave.  Most impressive as always.  I too would be interested if anyone sources the boards.

Sent from my iPhone 12pm!

Charley Jones, PMP

Dataman in Las Vegas

Data...@gmail.com

On Jun 4, 2022, at 12:49 PM, Chris Davis <famousd...@gmail.com> wrote:

That sounds great.  I've got a couple Picos I bought because they were cheap and I've done nothing with them.

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[Gwen Patton]

I'm pretty much standardized on ExtraPuTTY over here. It's a very nice terminal program, with a terminal window manager that's really slick to use, and built-in lossless transfer protocols for getting moving stuff to/from a CP/M device and a Windows machine. There may be versions of it or buildable code that can make it usable on other devices, but I haven't looked.

I liked PuTTY and used it for years, but the lack of even something as simple as Xmodem was a real bummer. 

The site "extraputty.com" is showing a placeholder page. Not sure what's up with that. But it's still on SourceForge and some other sites.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/extraputty/

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

73,

Gwen, NG3P

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[Belknap K]

I use 'picocom' here (in Linux).  Meets all my needs - supports the transfer protocols of 'minicom' (separate Debian package, iirc) including pacing (slow ascii uploads).

Works great for the Altair-Duino as well - didn't have to adjust it from my usual command line:

Source:

  cf_picocom.sh

  picocom -e \\ -f n -p n -d 8 -b 115200 --omap delbs,crlf --send-cmd "ascii-xfr -sn -l 50 -c 5" ${1}

# local variant for faster uploads in some environments:
  picocom -e \\ -f n -p n -d 8 -b 115200 --omap delbs,crlf --send-cmd "ascii-xfr -sn -l  5 -c 1" ${1}

```

[da...@hansels.net]

Walt, the terminal lets you configure the background color but I don't think the Pico has enough processing

power to overlay the text onto specific background images or patterns. At the least the libraries I'm using for

video output don't allow that.

The maximum number of characters per row is 80, as is stated in the "Limitation" section.

The mounting holes are just where I could fit them, they do not follow any standardized spacing.
You can 3d-print the enclosure (which fits the mounting holes) and then mount that to the back
of your monitor. I taped mine to the back using Velcro strips.

On Saturday, June 4, 2022 at 1:52:17 PM UTC-4 r4r...@gmail.com wrote:

[da...@hansels.net]

Gwen, I use (Extra-)Putty and TeraTerm all the time when I need to connect my AD or other computers

to my laptop.

The purpose of this project is to be able to transform any old monitor and keyboard you have lying around?
into a stand-alone serial terminal that can be quickly turned on and off quickly when needed (like a real VT100

terminal). And I don't have to bring my laptop over and connect it up anytime I want to use my AD.

Personally using a terminal like that feels a bit less "cheaty" to me than using a laptop as a display for a

retro computer. Ideally I guess I should use a real old terminal but an LCD monitor is just so much smaller
than a clunky CRT. But that's really just a personal preference thing.

[Robert Elsner]

That’s great. I’m looking exactly for this. I have an IBM Model M PS/2 keyboard and an old Crt. VersaTerm seems to be the solution to get the most realistic Terminal experience!

Am 05.06.2022 um 03:28 schrieb da...@hansels.net <da...@hansels.net>:

Gwen, I use (Extra-)Putty and TeraTerm all the time when I need to connect my AD or other computers

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[Magnus Olsson]

I can quite understand why you’d prefer using a ”real” dumb terminal over a terminal emulator running on a PC. Apart from the convenience of boot times etc. I also can’t help but feel a certain dissonance when connecting old hardware (or a clone, as in this case) to TeraTerm on a Win10 machine, because the ”terminal” is so incredibly much more powerful than the computer it’s connected to. 

Also, the new terminal is a very nice project in its own right. 

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I went for it and ordered ten boards from JLCPCB ... I should have them within a month.  

I figured, since I already had most of the components and want to play with dumb terminals connecting to modern USB keyboards and old VGA computer monitors I can buy at the thrift store for an average of $15, it only made sense to go for it.  

I just hope somebody could enhance the Raspberry Pi Pico software to let us choose screen displays from black background and color text to printer paper with white and green stripes or even multi-color stripes ... 80 column and 132 column screens with an up/down scroll bar control on the keyboard arrow keys.  

Fonts choices don't need to get too fancy, a Serif and a Sans Serif that is clear to read on the screen, although font size changes might be handy (Ctrl-Up or Ctrl-Dn) on the keyboard.  

I am willing to mail out one blank board each to five people for $5.  That helps me recoup some of the $20 shipping costs from China.  

IF those in Canada, I don't know the cost for 1st class mail to Canada.  That would require a little more to cover costs.  

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Got the ten VersaTerm boards yesterday, built-up one VersaTerm sans four resistors (on order).  Did the software install on the Raspbery Pi Pico ... too bad the Arduino DUE can't be that simple!    

Soldering components on the board was pretty easy other than the transistors.  The solder pads are so close together and even though my soldering pen has a tiny point of about 1.5mm ... the transistor leads are less than 1mm apart and the solder pads are at most .25mm thick so getting the heat onto the solder pad and lead creates a large enough bead to short on the first solder ... then I had to go back and suck off some of the solder to eliminate the shorts.  Only two of the transistors didn't show a short after initial soldering.  

I don't understand why the MAX232 is on a little stand-off board or at least why there isn't a DIP array to just solder an IC socket onto the board and plug in a MAX232 chip along with the SIL connector.  There seems to be plenty of space on the board for a DIP chip.  

I was amazed that soldering the HDMI connector was a breeze even though those PINs are so tiny and close together, but I guess it's the size of the PINs that made it so easy.  Too bad the transistor leads aren't thinner.  

For the two SMT diodes, I added a little solder to the board pads, then set each diode onto the solder, holding the diode with a sharp point I could then heat up a pad for solder flow to the diode on each end.  My only complaint there is that the stripe on the diodes is a dotted line and I had to use my DMM to figure out direction, as I couldn't see the stripe without my microscope.  

I can hardly wait to get the last four 270Ω resistors to fire up the terminal.  

[da...@hansels.net]

As far as I know there are no MAX3232 chips in a DIL package, only

MAX232 and those require 5V input signals. The Raspberry Pi Pico uses 3.3V.

The board should be functional without the 270 Ohm resistors, except for the HDMI output.

The VGA output and everything else will work just fine.

[Brian Welland]

Hi,

Their is a DIP version of the MAX3232 available but these are more expensive then the break-out board specified and you still need to add the capacitors.

Overall IMHO it makes more sense to just add a header and use a breakout as the final footprint would be about the same.

If you want to go the whole hog then you could solder the Pico directly onto the board making sure you still leave access to the underside TP2 and TP3 test pads to link to the USB data signals and similarly use the SOIP version of the MAX3232  but then it would be logical to SMD the resistors as well.

I feel sure that David made use of what he had readily available and thus took the easy approach to produce a working example of what was an exercise in seeing what the Pico could be used for.

This terminal is a great addition and IMO is a significantly improvement on the Geoff Brown one (using a PIC) as the programming is a lot less pain-full and requires no use of a special programmer. 

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[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

First Light ... 

OTOH, I don't seem to have any keyboard connection ???  First, Although I see +5V on the USB connector on the VersaTerm board, I don't get any LED on the NumLock toggling.  I tried hitting F12, then I tried the RESET + DEFULTS + Ctrl on the Keyboard and still I'm stuck at just the same display as above.  

[da...@hansels.net]

Double-check the wiring between the TP2/TP3 pad on the Pico and the TP2/TP3 on the VersaTerm board.

Make sure TP2 connects to TP2 and TP3 to TP3. Also make sure there is no short between TP2 and TP2.

[da...@hansels.net]

Sorry I meant make sure there is no short between TP2 and TP3.

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I took some close-ups of the transistor solder points besides a simple continuity check between the transistor connections;  

The only seeming near short is on Q3 between to base ... about 0.2Ω ... I did use an Exacto knife to scratch down between the two solder points, but it stay's at 0.2Ω.  

[da...@hansels.net]

> The only seeming near short is on Q3 between to base

Between what and the base of Q3?

But the transistors have nothing to do with the USB port. The only important connections for the USB port

are those from TP2/TP3 on the Pico to TP2/TP3 on the VersaTerm board and the solder connections of
the USB port itself (see assembly tips).

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Sorry, between Emitter and Base is 0.2Ω ... All the other transistors have higher resistances between the two pins.  

[da...@hansels.net]

There should be almost infinite resistance between Q3 base and emitter, so it looks like there is

either a short or Q3 is busted.  But that will only make the buzzer not work, it has nothing to do with
the USB keyboard.

First check (as I mentioned before) the TP2/TP3 connections.

Next make sure that nothing is plugged into the microUSB port directly on the Pi Pico board. If something
is plugged in there then the USB keyboard won't work because there will be a conflict between the two.

If that still does not work then try a different keyboard. All seven USB keyboards I have tested worked
but obviously that's still a small sample.

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Okay, I'll swap out the Q3 ... no big deal there. 

I tested the continuity between TP2 and TP3 ... it's an open circuit ... NOT SHORTS.  

The only connections I currently have are;  Power-IN, Keyboard and VGA.  

I've tried four different keyboards, two different models from DELL, a cheap-o I use on this PC and another non-branded basic keyboard, none give me the NUM light or seem to work with the board.  

Despite no shorts show up on the DMM between the transistor leads, you can see how close they are compared to everything else on the board.  

I'm going to suck all the solder points down for the transistors.  

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Replaced Q3, cleaned up the solder points on the other transistors, did continuity checks, but still when I plug in any keyboard despite +5V and GND on the USB connector, I do not get the NumLED to come ON and F12 does not work.  

I zipped up the microscope photos should anybody be interested.  

There is NO SHORT between TP2 and TP3 ... 

I put the oscilloscope on each TP2 and TP3 since they seem to be tied to the Rx and Tx of the keyboard from the schematic, but I do not see any activity when depressing RESET, or typing on the keyboard.  

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Looking at the schematic I followed the Q3 Base to the PICO PIN 12 ... Pulling the PICO off the VersaTerm board I could not find any shorts from PIN 12 to another PIN on either side of it.  Visually, they're all 2.54mm apart so those solder points are all perfect.  

Checking the continuity on the new Q3 it shows a very low resistance until I remove the PICO, then it's infinity.  There is no shorts on the PICO board, so it is something inside the PICO board causing the low resistance on those two PINs.  

I get a good +5V and GND at the keyboard USB connector, yet the keyboards can never turn ON the NumLock LED ??? and the keyboards don't seem to be functioning on the VersaTerm ... yet they work fine on my PC.  

Although I have kind'a bad eyesight, looking at the schematic I would expect TP2 and TP3 which tie to the USBD- to TP3 and USBD+ to TP2, but in the schematic it say's J2 USBDATA ??? 

IF this is a 2-sided board, TP2 and TP3 go nowhere, no connections to anything and I don't see any JP2 anywhere on the board ???  

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I downloaded ExtraPutty ... I don't see any significant differences as far as a Windows terminal to my Altair.  

I still prefer TeraTerm and only wish one of these terminal program actually gave us a few basic background displays like green bar printer paper, orange, aqua and white printer paper, besides choosing to have holes visible on both sides of the paper and the type fits similar to how it worked back in the day on a WWII Teletype, or an ASR33 teletype.  

I also think that a good terminal program for vintage play would include a paper tape emulator that can both punch and read .TAP files.  

Emulate a cassette to make a .wav file from data sent from the computer and read a .wav file to send to the computer.  

[Walt Perko]

Hi,  

Which two PINs on the PICO are the connections to USBDATA?  

I don't see any traces going from TP2 and TP3 to any other components on the board other than the USB port ??? 

There doesn't seem to be any continuity from TP2 or TP3 to the PICO.  

[da...@hansels.net]

As you can see on the PCB scans, TP2 and TP3 connect to the USB port. Did you add the wire from
TP2/TP3 to TP2/TP3 on the Pico board (as mentioned before, see here)?

Otherwise the Pico can not see the USB keyboard.

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Silly mistake ... I forgot about the "Assembly Tips" by the time I got the boards from China, so I just used the board text and BOM text to populate the board.  

This brings to mind, rather than adding jumper wires from the PICO to the VersaTerm board, I guess people could just use an adapter cable from the PICO micro-USB to a Female Type A also.  

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Okay, I did try using the micro-USB to Female USB Type-A adapter since I have a couple of them.  The PICO doesn't include the +5V to its micro-USB port ... so that's a no go.  

I added the two jumper wires and happy happy happy ... it works!  

After exploring the various menu settings I don't see any reason to make any changes other than in 2) Terminal Settings, b) Default text color, I switched from light grey to green.  I didn't see anything else to change to connect to any of my Altair computers as the VersaTerm is already set for 9600 BAUD 8N1.  

Now I just need to connect to my Altair 8800c console port ... IF that works, then I'll bolt the VersaTerm to the back of my DELL monitor for a safe place to operate from.  

Yup, those black bars underneath stretch out to connect to the 100mm x 100mm VESA mounting 4mm bolts.  They just 3D print in a couple of minutes.  

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

One thought is that the only thing missing is a simple USB connection to the PC for drive swapping.  

Mike Douglas designed the FDC+ board for the Altair 8800's ... it connects to the Altair serial port 1 leaving port 0 as the console, then it connects to the PC via USB cable that connects to the FDC+ Serial Drive Server where I can load any floppy disk or hard disk into any of the four drive ports in the PC software and swap the disks (.DSKs) IN/OUT as I need and LOAD/SAVE files to any of the four drives.  

This kind of operation would be awesome as an add-on to the VersaTerm.  

[fridtjof.ma...@gmail.com]

Walt

I use BlueTooth for terminal, serial to a machine running my hayes modem emulation and USB to a machine running CP/NET server.

The CP/NET server maps directories as needed, and supports much more than 8MB limit imposed by CP/M

I actually have around 300GB available on the CP/NET server, with some 60MB in use.

If you decide to go the CP/NET route.... beware that CP/NET takes 4352 bytes of RAM.

Create a small executable CPNETUNL.COM (I forget who came up with this...) that unloads

CP/NET if the RAM is needed.

A>DDT

-A100

LHLD 6

MVI L,0

PUSH H

LXI D,228

DAD D

MVI M,C9

POP H

LXI D,1FD

DAD D

CALL 117

JMP 0

PCHL

-G0

A>SAVE 1 CPNETUNL.COM

When run, this unloads CP/NET (tested with CP/NET 1.2)

I use a custom version of CP/NET server. The client side thinks it is using 38400 baud

serial connection.

: fred@tara dl $; stty -F /dev/ttyACM0
speed 38400 baud; line = 0;
min = 0; time = 50;
ignbrk -brkint -icrnl -imaxbel
-opost -onlcr
-isig -icanon -iexten -echo -echoe -echok -echoctl -echoke
: fred@tara dl $;

and this works super-reliable. (CP/NET uses short packets, 140 or so bytes). Sorry I lost the sources

2 years ago... should have it re-created end of summer...

FredW

[da...@hansels.net]

One thought is that the only thing missing is a simple USB connection to the PC for drive swapping. 

Mike Douglas designed the FDC+ board for the Altair 8800's ... it connects to the Altair serial port 1 leaving port 0 as the console, then it connects to the PC via USB cable that connects to the FDC+ Serial Drive Server where I can load any floppy disk or hard disk into any of the four drive ports in the PC software and swap the disks (.DSKs) IN/OUT as I need and LOAD/SAVE files to any of the four drives.  

There is no generic protocol to swap disk drive images that would work for all kind of computers.

In the FDC+ it is easy since it's just two pieces of software (the FDC+ and the drive server) that were
both written by Mike. VersaTerm is supposed to be generic.

VersaTerm can forward serial traffic to USB which allows to exchange data (like xmodem protocol) with
the PC. That way you could upload disk images to the AD.But that can only work if you are using a PS/2
keyboard since the Pico only has one USB port and you can't run it both as a host (to connect
the keyboard) and as a device (to connect to a PC) at the same time.

[da...@hansels.net]

Yup, those black bars underneath stretch out to connect to the 100mm x 100mm VESA mounting 4mm bolts.  They just 3D print in a couple of minutes.  

There are STL files here for creating a full enclosure. The enclosure doesn't fit on a VESA mount but
I you can just use double-sided tape or Velcro to attach it to the back of the monitor. That way the board is a bit more protected.

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Only one real complaint about the VersaTerm ... the "bell" beeper isn't loud enough!  I can barely hear it.  

[da...@hansels.net]

Did you turn the volume all the way up (in Config->Bell settings)? If it's still not loud enough then change the

frequency (in the same menu) to 2400Hz - that's the resonant frequency of the beeper so it will be loudest

at that frequency.

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I had the volume at 10, but I should have thought about the frequencies to test too.  I guess I figured 440 was the loudest.  

Now mine at 2300 is the loudest for a few quick tests and that works very well.  

Too bad it can't be a nice "ding" with a little reverb like older terminal bells were.  

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Something I do notice is when playing "LADDER" there's a cursor square flashing next to the character all the time.  At first it was distracting, but now it's just a little annoying.  The timing is the same using the visual clues.  

[udo....@freenet.de]

r4r...@gmail.com schrieb am Donnerstag, 7. Juli 2022 um 05:53:16 UTC+2:

Hi, 

Something I do notice is when playing "LADDER" there's a cursor square flashing next to the character all the time.  At first it was distracting, but now it's just a little annoying.  The timing is the same using the visual clues.  

Happens with all such games on terminals where the cursor cannot be disabled or where it cannot/was't

configured properly.

[da...@hansels.net]

The terminal does support disabling the cursor. On first look it seems like Ladder never attempts to disable the cursor.

For example in TeraTerm the cursor is also still visible during the game (not that TeraTerm is the end-all be-all example

of a terminal program but it's another data point). It may be that Ladder uses some non-standard command to disable

the cursor. May be worth looking into some more.

[udo....@freenet.de]

da...@hansels.net schrieb am Donnerstag, 7. Juli 2022 um 14:24:00 UTC+2:

The terminal does support disabling the cursor. On first look it seems like Ladder never attempts to disable the cursor.

For example in TeraTerm the cursor is also still visible during the game (not that TeraTerm is the end-all be-all example

of a terminal program but it's another data point). It may be that Ladder uses some non-standard command to disable

the cursor. May be worth looking into some more.

If one runs LADCONF and selects terminal 30) (none of the known ones), the config programs asks about

clear screen and position cursor sequences. The game won't try to disable the cursor.

You could try this: to the sequence for clear screen also add the one to disable the cursor, then it should

be off durig the game. To enable the cursor again after some playing one needs some external program

that does that.

[udo....@freenet.de]

Or just write a program 'cursor' with arguments on/off and use that for such games.

[Chris Davis]

Even on an old style "glass terminal" you see the flashing cursor.

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

That's completely different than what I'm getting.  The "g" has a shadow the blinks along with the screen updates as pieces move.  

[Chris Davis]

Yeah, the cursor moves behind whatever character is updated, it's usually behind the "g".

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I watched the screen a little more and saw the flashing cursor shadowing all the moving characters on the screen.  I didn't notice that before as I was concentrating on the character "g/p" I had control of.  

BTW, in the process of watching the other characters, I found a little "cheat" to get more points.  

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

You can figure out the cheat if you're using a VersaTerm or similar that has the "Bell/Beeper" and you pay attention to the moves on the screen.  

A silent game hides the cheat.  A noisy game and close attention to the action on the screen action is the key.  

On Thursday, July 7, 2022 at 6:31:05 PM UTC-7 furba...@gmail.com wrote:

post the cheat :D

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I wish David or somebody could fix the VersaTerm program so the background screen could be stripey and let us choose the stripe colors and have the background scroll up with each line feed.   

Even if it slowed the terminal down, it would probably just be more like how a real printer at worked back in the day. 

 

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Okay, finally got the parts 3D printed to box up my two VersaTerms ... They're a nice tight fit inside the box.  

I added a little more to the boxes so they can hang on the back of the LCD monitors;  

Really good .STL files for 3D printing!  

The two types of "L" brackets are attached here;