[Coco] Videotex ROM Pak

[wdg3rd at comcast.net]

From: "N8WQ" <exwn8jef at gmail.com> 
To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com> 
Sent: Friday, January 16, 2009 5:41:41 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [Coco] Videotex ROM Pak 

> CoCo Gang, 
> Today I found my Videotex ROM Pak in a box of old software. The label 
> fell off but I am certain that this is the software. I put some scotch 
> tape on one of the pins to keep it from auto starting several years ago. 
> What is the address I need to execute to get this software to start? 
> Also does anyone have a scan of the user manual for this rom pak? I am 
> using this as a quick and dirty dumb terminal for packet radio use. 

> Alan Jones 

300 bps, more or less a VT-52 with a small screen, the CompuServe graphics are pretty much a dead issue. I don't recall any special start address, I assume it's the same as any other early (as in -- it came out the same month as the first Coco) autostart ROMpak. Peel off the tape, plug it in, turn it on. The ROM contains no known viruses and if there are any unknown to me, I doubt the modern script-kiddies who are younger than that ROMpak would know them either. Besides, modem war-dialing is a lost art since war-driving to troll for unsecured wireless routers was invented. (And war-dialing was never as useful as that lousy movie implied). 

Never used them much for CompuServe except to demo to customers, but it was the terminal software I used the time I set up a multi-user OS-9 (Level One) system in my classromm in my RSCC. The manual listed commands that implied the possibility, and I'd been having fun with Xenix for quite a while, so I decided to see if things worked. Rigged a null-modem bit-banger cable, and by damn, they did, except for the dropped characters if you typed on the "terminal" while the "host" was accessing its floppy drive, this being before the RS-232 Pak was shipped. A two-station time-sharing system for just under $1,072 including California and Los Angeles sales tax assuming you already owned two TV sets (based on sale prices at the time, and I can't recall how many cents over $1,071, it's been over a quarter of a century). A fun proof-of-concept, but I don't recall any sales resulting.. 
-- 
Ward Griffiths wdg3rd at comcast.net