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A question about the P-Box lights (normal?)


Omega-TI

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I have a question I was hoping someone might be able to answer....

 

When I'm on BBS with Telco transferring data, the lights on the TI-FDC come on, even though it's not being accessed. The lights on both the RS-232 cards come on as well. The lights on all three cards come on at about half brightness. Telco is only set up as COM3 on the second RS-232 card so that is the only light that should be blinking.

 

When I transfer data to disk or the HxC, only the one light comes on at normal brightness. When I transfer data via the HDX using the first RS-232 card the lights also act properly.

 

Everything is operating correctly, only the lights are screwball. What's up?

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If you are looking for a DSR the light will come on any time you access that CRU address. May be checking to make sure that the DSR device is there.

 

I dunno, almost anything is possible with Telco. For sure, the way Telco accesses the RS-232 is different than most other programs For example, it spits at the Nano-PEB and refuses to operate. I does not seem to want to load up for emulators either (even to test with). But you put that program on R.I. and - WOW -.

 

That program was light-years ahead of everything else at the time. The programmer was a true genius. Even today there are some aspects of that programs architecture I think would be well served for some of the guys to employ.

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The disk DSR is at >1100 and if I remember correctly the serial card is at >1300? Therfore the disk controller will light up as the ti rom pages each device DSR into memory to find the device.

 

Bloody slow way of doing it though. I mean, you only have to find the card once at startup! It's not going to change while the program is running!

Edited by Willsy
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I dunno, almost anything is possible with Telco. For sure, the way Telco accesses the RS-232 is different than most other programs For example, it spits at the Nano-PEB and refuses to operate. I does not seem to want to load up for emulators either (even to test with). But you put that program on R.I. and - WOW -.

 

That program was light-years ahead of everything else at the time. The programmer was a true genius. Even today there are some aspects of that programs architecture I think would be well served for some of the guys to employ.

 

Sadly the Nano-PEB does not use the original type of chip used in RS232 cards, and alot of terminal programs access the serial chip directly via CRU bits and not via the DSR, as such they fail when they don't find the TMS9902 there to talk to, but not all Nano-PEB's are like that, I think earlier models used the actual similar chip.

 

Yeah Telco is amazing, I used to have many a meeting hanging out at the programmer's house, chatting and enjoying dinner and he was just amazing overall in his skills and personal self.

 

The disk DSR is at >1100 and if I remember correctly the serial card is at >1300? Therfore the disk controller will light up as the ti rom pages each device DSR into memory to find the device.

 

Bloody slow way of doing it though. I mean, you only have to find the card once at startup! It's not going to change while the program is running!

 

Yep, bloody slow way of doing it, the normal DSRLNK that programmers use is horrible, I have written better ones that scan faster, and don't redo scans when accessing the same device multiple times in a row, sure alot better. At some point I going to publish some of my handy-dandy assembly utilities that i have written over the years that might help others write assembly programs better.

 

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The disk DSR is at >1100 and if I remember correctly the serial card is at >1300? Therfore the disk controller will light up as the ti rom pages each device DSR into memory to find the device.

 

Bloody slow way of doing it though. I mean, you only have to find the card once at startup! It's not going to change while the program is running!

 

Yes, the first card is at >1300, the second is at >1500.

It's nice to know WHY it's doing what it's doing, even though it looks a little funky doing it.

 

I'm betting he had major programming experience on other platforms and some of his previous methods got carried over. Maybe it was an attempt to have bullet proof code, or a way of saving a few bytes here or there.

 

Still, the fact remains, that after all this time... Telco is the #1 choice for the TI and is still being used. That say's a lot about the program over-all.

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I have a question I was hoping someone might be able to answer....

 

When I'm on BBS with Telco transferring data, the lights on the TI-FDC come on, even though it's not being accessed. The lights on both the RS-232 cards come on as well. The lights on all three cards come on at about half brightness. Telco is only set up as COM3 on the second RS-232 card so that is the only light that should be blinking.

 

When I transfer data to disk or the HxC, only the one light comes on at normal brightness. When I transfer data via the HDX using the first RS-232 card the lights also act properly.

 

Everything is operating correctly, only the lights are screwball. What's up?

 

This is most likely the result of Telco using the Rs232's interrupt driven Circular Interrupt Buffer (CIB) to capture received characters. When a character is received an interrupt is generated. The system must poll the cards to determine which one generated an interrupt, allowing the card to service the incoming character.

 

Edit: DSRLNK would not come into play in the above scenario.

Edited by InsaneMultitasker
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This is most likely the result of Telco using the Rs232's interrupt driven Circular Interrupt Buffer (CIB) to capture received characters. When a character is received an interrupt is generated. The system must poll the cards to determine which one generated an interrupt, allowing the card to service the incoming character.

 

Edit: DSRLNK would not come into play in the above scenario.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head, because when data is incoming, the lights are flashing.

 

Could this be why Telco has to have the baud rate set slower so as not to have data overruns?

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I think you hit the nail on the head, because when data is incoming, the lights are flashing.

 

Could this be why Telco has to have the baud rate set slower so as not to have data overruns?

 

Yes. It isn't just Telco that is hampered by the CIB and the ROM Interrupt routine -- the same practice is used by many terminal emulators. The CIB is one of the contributing factors to topping out at 9600. Other factors include how the keyboard is scanned, how the screen is buffered/displayed, and the data stream itself.

 

File transfers that use the CIB can often sustain higher rates -IF- the packet size is less than the CIB buffer size. For example, XMODEM's packet size is 128 bytes (plus header) which is smaller than the CIB buffer of 255 bytes. Some file transfer routines use direct polling to increase the transfer speeds. Some programs, including those I have written, use either hardware handshaking (bypassing the CIB entirely) or an improved interrupt routine to manage the data.

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Sadly the Nano-PEB does not use the original type of chip used in RS232 cards, and alot of terminal programs access the serial chip directly via CRU bits and not via the DSR, as such they fail when they don't find the TMS9902 there to talk to, but not all Nano-PEB's are like that, I think earlier models used the actual similar chip.

I just got a NanoPEB that has a TMS9902.

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