Pasting into con: causes crash

[John Kennedy]

I was trying to get a version of Conway's Life for the Dazzler working. (John Conway died last week).

I found an ASM file on Z80Pack of course.

Being clever, I mean lazy, I thought I could copy the source file to my Mac's clipboard and then:

PIP LIFE.ASM < CON: 

and then right-click and paste would work. Sadly it crashes the emulation - too large a file?

-John

[Tony Nicholson]

I've used PIP to bootstrap file transfer programs (like XMODEM or KERMIT).

The only gotcha is that PIP buffers text into memory and then when it writes

it out to disk this is where characters get lost/overrun.  You can even UNLOAD

(convert to Intel hex) and PIP will run an eye over the hex records -

  PIP file.hex=con:[haz]

(the H is for Hex, A for ASCII and Z zeroes the parity bit).

Back in the day this is also how papertapes were fed from a teletype!

Tony

[John Kennedy]

I can paste a single line of text into tty:, but anything more causes the IMSAI to hang - and a page full will reset it.

[Udo Munk]

You cannot paste pages of text into a machine from 1975 and expect that to work.

You'll lose characters or in case of the replicas overrun the buffers with doing this.

[John Kennedy]

Haha ok :) I think handing the clipboard and feeding data to a web socket is more “2020” than “1975” but I will accept it as a period limitation. What is the easiest way to get a few pages of text onto a file on a “disk”?

[Udo Munk]

On Tuesday, April 14, 2020 at 3:49:30 PM UTC+2, John Kennedy wrote:

Haha ok :) I think handing the clipboard and feeding data to a web socket is more “2020” than “1975” but I will accept it as a period limitation. What is the easiest way to get a few pages of text onto a file on a “disk”?

Kermit or Xmodem. 

[John Kennedy]

Sorry Udo, I'm blanking here.. What should I do on the Mac side to send a file via XMODEM to the IMSAI?

The IMSAI can see that UC1 is connected to a telnet server for example.. with the BBS access feature.. but without running a BBS service, what do I do? I've a feeling it's obvious but I'm stumped.

[Udo Munk]

On Tuesday, April 14, 2020 at 9:46:36 PM UTC+2, John Kennedy wrote:

Sorry Udo, I'm blanking here.. What should I do on the Mac side to send a file via XMODEM to the IMSAI?

The IMSAI can see that UC1 is connected to a telnet server for example.. with the BBS access feature.. but without running a BBS service, what do I do? I've a feeling it's obvious but I'm stumped.

On the Mac you need minicom and lrzsz, install with brew. Connect to the IMSAI with minicom via USB and run

 xmodem /r /x0

This will receive a file via console port, so you now can send a file from minicom with CTL-A S.

[John Kennedy]

Thanks - using the USB connection was the bit I was missing.

[Udo Munk]

On Tuesday, April 14, 2020 at 9:46:36 PM UTC+2, John Kennedy wrote:

The IMSAI can see that UC1 is connected to a telnet server for example.. with the BBS access feature.. but without running a BBS service, what do I do? I've a feeling it's obvious but I'm stumped.

If you prefer kermit install ckermit on the Mac, run kermit and then set host * port, it will wait for incoming TCP connections

on that port. Now you can dial with kermit on the IMSAI to the ip/port of your Mac with ATD over the modem and transfer

files with kermit. You do not really need some BBS software, just something that can listen on a TCP port and support

some sort of protocol. Also explore tools like netcat and socat, these will allow to build a listening TCP server and enable

not network aware software to talk over TCP.

[John Kennedy]

Hi Udo -

I really like the idea of using Kermits to talk to each other. 

On the Mac..

C-Kermit>set host * 8080

Waiting to Accept a TCP/IP connection on port 8080 ...

On the IMSAI..

Kermit

>Set port UC1 

>Connect

>ATD192.168.86.82:8080

On the Mac..

 Reverse DNS Lookup... (OK)

espressif.lan connected on port 8080

And if I do a Connect on both, I can happily chat. So far so good!

And then..

On the Mac..

> send /protocol:xmodem hello.txt

On the IMSAI

Ctrl + \ C

> receive hello.txt

It works! :-)

[TheHighNibble]

Much more... 

• authentic :-)
• painful :-(
• rewarding :-)

than a bloody-minded cut&paste into a window. 

2 out of 3 ain't bad.