Subj : Re: Using AX.25 w/older h To : Ed Vance From : Damon A. Getsman Date : Fri Feb 27 2015 03:28 pm Re: Re: Using AX.25 w/older h By: Ed Vance to Damon A. Getsman on Thu Feb 26 2015 00:23:00 EV> Probably there was some software/hardware like Digicom for the Atari, EV> Don't know, Digicom afaik was for use with a C=64. Oh there were bunches of non-Atari add ons that would give it all sorts of capabilities. I just never had the budget to be able to work with them at all, unfortunately. I'll totally do it once I get some income that is disposable here once I get chance, though. EV> We all learn a little bit at a time, don't we? Indeed. Just trying to push that curve towards the steeper as much I can lately. The age of 40 coming at me is making me value my time a lot more. EV> I got the C=64, Floppy Drive and 300 baud Modem to start out with. EV> I've seen how slow Tape transfers were and didn't want that, I wanted EV> the FDD even though it was very costly back in 1984. Yeah. :) I was donated my first Atari, a 600XL (with a WHOPPING 16K of memory), and all it had was the analog tape drive. God I even had 3 backups of some of my programs. That medium was actually volatile enough that I had times when I still couldn't recover despite 3 backups. That was horrifying. Writing one hundred lines of code back then (which would come close to filling up the memory) really blew my mind; losing it was a horror. This was very early 90s, maybe a little bit in the late 80s, also. Whenever it was, 180-360k floppies were the norm, and 1.2m floppies weren't far behind, either. Most people were working with 640k of memory by that time, not 16k. Eight-bit was definitely quickly becoming a thing of the past, though many still used it. EV> I just know pieces and bits, and had help learning what I learned from EV> some other Hams who took their time explaining what's what to me. Well I certainly do appreciate any of y'all that are taking the time to share bits of this all with me now. :) DAG>> electronics theory going on behind that? I've been waiting EV> This was back in the Mid-1970's when I assembled that stuff. EV> I saw the 555 AFSK schematic somewhere, just as I copied the portion EV> of the RTTY Reader project in PE Magazine. EV> That Reader had maybe eight LED's on the front panel, that scrolled the EV> words in the RTTY signal data. EV> Can't remember if they were regular 7 Segment LED chips or what. EV> Some letters in our alphabet would be hard to configure on a 7 segment EV> display chip, I'd think. Gotcha. So more copying than comprehension? I'm still working on the point where I can understand the theoretical basis behind some of the electronics, but it's taking me awhile to understand the nuances of it, despite my math degree. EV> When You get back into doing that High Voltage stuff be very very EV> careful and don't let it 'talk' to You. Okay, I've got to ask. I'm having mad scientist visions here with people falling into trances looking at tesla coil discharges and deciding that the truth to everything lies within them, thus getting fried by the human bug zapper. I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean... Can you elaborate? :) EV> Those two 10 Turn POTS came with a calibrated dial that could be locked EV> to keep it from moving. Those 'helipots' sound pretty useful for some stuff that I'm trying to work on right now, I might have to see if digikey or some other retailer has them for a decent price. EV> The VEC Test Question Pool can be downloaded from http://www.ncvec.org EV> if You want to study them. I do very much so; synchronet has a door for it, too, but it'd be great to have something I could put on hardcopy, also. Thank you for the info! EV> Yes, I wrote about the Netronics ASCII/Video board kit earlier. EV> It was meant to be a Terminal with RS-232 output. EV> I just grabbed my connections a little upstream of the output where it EV> was TTL level. EV> That's how I was able to connect the AFSK Keyer and Demodulator to EV> the Netronics kit. Gotcha. I figured as much, but wasn't totally sure. EV> What got me interested was I had read a book called the TV Typewriter EV> Cookbook and it interested me because someone could get on RTTY without EV> having the noise and buying paper for it. EV> I used a cassette recorder to record the receiver audio as I was EV> reading what was coming on the screen, so I could play it back to see EV> it later on, if I wanted to. Awesome. :) God I can't wait to be able to get into things. EV> Yes, as long as the difference in the Mark and Space frequencies were EV> 170 Cycles apart, my configuration worked like "Duck Soup". I am floundering to know what this means. EV> Hey!, Anyone who know me, knows that I'm ignorant about lots of stuff. EV> I learned by asking questions, everybody does, unless they are inventing EV> something new that's never been done before. Well, we all are, outside of our niches. It's pushing those boundaries that makes us more valuable as people, and in some areas, more valuable to the people in our lives as well. I try to push the boundaries and test myself every day, to quote Emilio Estevez in Young Guns. EV> Everything I've been talking about pertaining to RTTY has been about EV> AUDIO. EV> The Digicom stuff I used later when I got the C=64 converted Audio to EV> Data on the cassette port, and Data from the cassette port that I typed EV> on the C=64 keyboard into Audio. EV> -snip- EV>> Years later I got a used Hallicrafter SX-42 for my shack. EV>> 73 and wish You well with what You choose. EV> There are many things that Hams are interested in, I've only done a EV> tiny bit if what Hams do. EV> But what I do I enjoy, You will enjoy it too, just only put one hand EV> in the final amplifier, keep the other one in your pocket. EV> 73 Gotcha. Thank you so much for the info dump. I greatly appreciate it. :) I've got lots of tabs open for things to look at now. :) Best wishes. -Damon --- SBBSecho 2.27-OpenBSD * Origin: Tinfoil.synchro.net - now at FTN (1:340/200) (1:340/200) .