Jon Hales Mon, 6 Nov 2017, 11:39 to Bill, Mark, Jack, Roger, Herb, Eric, Richard Hi All I had mentioned that the keyboard of the MDS-226 was generating odd codes - perhaps in need of some cleaning of contacts. And my MDS-231's keyboard is no better. Mark advised that the MDS II Series systems default to Serial 1 (TTY) at 110 baud when no keyboard is attached. No amount of reading the manual would have told me that. (My fault, not the manual's). The diagram at Appendix A Fig A1 (Intellec Series II Installation and Service Manual 9800559A) indicated that I would need to use a crossover cable. It worked, but it was slow enough to leave it working while I went to make a cup of coffee while the boot disk for 4.3W was responding to a DIR. I tried Serial 2 at 2400 baud, this time with a straight through cable. Fig A2 on the same page is ambiguous, since the choice of cable depends on jumper W7 on the IOC. This worked and was a lot more satisfactory. This is a step forward for two reasons: - my Televideo terminal doesn't do speeds below 300 baud (but Teraterm on an old Thinkpad would do 110). - my MDS-231 has problems with the keyboard and display; using a terminal means I can leave those issues for later. Now a question: Does anyone know what change is (may be) required to the code at Appendix D of the same manual to change the baud rate? The PDF copy of the manual has a hand-written note saying 'DOES NOT WORK'. Which is correct, the manual or the person who annotated the page? Thanks to Roger having described his solution, I now have a PBX cable to make up a means to operate the Shugart drive in double density mode. Assuming that I can get a iSBC-202 to work, of course. Best regards Mark Fisher Mon, 6 Nov 2017, 15:28 to me, Bill, Jack, Roger, Herb, Eric, Richard Hi All, One note on the keyboards is there are no contacts on any of the ones I have worked with. (not to say that there are some out there) The use hall effect sensors where pressing a key moves a magnet over a sensor. The output of may of these type of keys is controlled by the scanning microcontroller. Each key needs power, ground, enable & data (1bit). There are variations on this too. I think most are 4 wire but there are some 3 wire (pin) versions out there. Back in the 90's I made a last time buy of the keys from Honeywell. I did not get enough but they are very hard to find anymore. I am interested on how you got serial 2 to work. Did it work with both serial ports at the same time? I never figured out how to redirect it to #2. As for the baud rate, there may be a program called BAUD that can change the rate. You run it like this: BAUD 1 H It will set the rate to either 9600 or 19200 on serial 1. Use #2 for serial #2. I would start my system up at the slow speed run the command then change the terminal speed. At some point, I am going to modify the baud rate in the ROMs so it starts up at 9600 or 19200. Since you are using a terminal now. You should update either CREDIT.MAC or AEDIT.MAC to account for your terminal type. Without changing this, It will be a pain to edit anything. There are examples of the settings for either editor in their respective documentation. Best regards, Mark Jon Hales Mon, 6 Nov 2017, 16:33 to Mark, Bill, Jack, Roger, Herb, Eric, Richard Hi Mark, cc others A further message to, hopefully, keep clear about which points I'm commenting about. - in your message at 15:28 GMT. When I mentioned 'keyboard contacts', I was thinking of the 25-pin connector on the back of the IOC. I wasn't thinking about the key mechanism, which is unlikely to be the problem, namely that half the alphabet doesn't appear and some letters are found on 2+ keys. A faulty microcontroller or ROM is more likely. When I open up the keyboard, I'll use your notes to identify the type of switch. Serial port. I didn't try Serial 1 and 2 at the same time, but I did have the keyboard disconnected throughout. It didn't appear to require any redirection - of course, #1 and #2 come from different 8251s, so assume they are waiting to receive a signal - and that they could both be used at the same time, but in that case I guess the TTY might slow down the whole system. I used full duplex mode and CR meaning just CR (not CR+LF) at 2400, 8, 1, no handshake. I had a 25-pin dongle with LEDs on Serial #2 to see which lines were carrying signals and to see whether key-strokes were getting through. It would be great to have 9600 / 19200 by default on both #1 and #2, so I encourage you to work out the modifications required. And thanks for the suggestions about configuring the editors. Best regards Jack Mcmullen Mon, 6 Nov 2017, 19:04 to fishermne, me, nj7p, Roger, hjohnson, spacewar, mainpatents For the "Quick" baud fix, use the Monitor and enter the following hex code at say 100h and execute it. Verify your port address. Sets the 8251 to 9600 baud 0000 3E40 44 MVI A,040H ; RESET THE USART 0002 D3F5 45 OUT TTYC 46 ; 0004 3E36 47 MVI A,036H ; SELECT COUNTER 0, R/L LSB-MSB, SQ WV GEN 0006 D3F3 48 OUT 0F3H ; MODE 3 AND LSB FOLLOWED BY MSB 49 ; 0008 210800 50 LXI H,08H ; FOR 9600 BAUD 000B 7D 51 MOV A,L 000C D3F0 52 OUT 0F0H ; SEND TO THE TIMER FOR TTY USART CH0 000E 7C 53 MOV A,H 000F D3F0 54 OUT 0F0H 55 ; 0011 3ECE 56 MVI A,0CEH ; MULTIPLIER FOR 9600 BAUD 0013 D3F5 57 OUT TTYC 0015 3E25 58 MVI A,025H ; ENABLE TX, RX, AND RTS 0017 D3F5 59 OUT TTYC 0019 C7 60 RST 7 ; DONE Bill Beech (NJ7P) Mon, 6 Nov 2017, 19:51 to me, Mark, Jack, Roger, Herb, Eric, Richard Jon Would you like me to build a version of the Version 1.3 Monitor that puts both ports into 9600 8 N 1? It would be easy to do. Anyone else? Mark, You need to use ATTRIB to switch the console port on the IPC. The Monitor should do that by detecting which serial port the space come in on. Mark Fisher 6 Nov 2017, 20:04 to Bill, me, Jack, Roger, Herb, Eric, Richard I would not mind getting a patched version but remember, I have the WSI version. I think the location is the same on where to change it. Bill, you lost me on using ATTRIB. The only one I know of is for file attributes. Is there something I am missing? It makes sense on hitting the space bar. I will have to try that out. I pretty much just use the first serial port for Kermit file transfers. Regards, Mark Mark Fisher 6 Nov 2017, 20:11 to Bill, me, Jack, Roger, Herb, Eric, Richard OK, I get it now. Yes the "A" (Attribute) command. I have used that in the past. I found though on the Series-II that it was not enough and had to re-assign the console in ISIS as well to get the editor to use the serial port rather than builtin console. Don't quite remember the sequence anymore. Don't think we are talking about the Logic Analyzer? I have a 16702B & 16700A. Don't think I ever messed with serial ports on them. Regards, Mark Bill Beech (NJ7P) 6 Nov 2017, 20:18 to Mark, me, Jack, Roger, Herb, Eric, Richard All, Oops! Mark is right on ATTRIB. I am confusing the Monitor commands A and Q, which work on the IOBYTE. Sorry!