[Coco] terrifying sysadmins for fun with UUCP was Re: old backups , RESTORED!

[gene heskett]

On Friday, January 07, 2011 07:05:17 pm Tim Fadden did opine:

> On 1/7/2011 4:54 PM, gene heskett wrote:
> > On Friday, January 07, 2011 06:45:43 pm Willard Goosey did opine:
> >> On Fri, Jan 07, 2011 at 05:41:14PM -0500, gene heskett wrote:
> >>> Be careful&  don't step on it or kick it.  I've used the 1984 time
> >>> frame for that and been called a liar by many.  It was 85 when I
> >>> discovered os9, and I was off the the races.
> >> 
> >> Actually, I think I said "the early 80's" which is comfortably vague.
> >> I know LII goes back to 86-ish.  Back when the CoCo was a current
> >> product I was a BASIC boy, I never could have convinced Dad to buy
> >> software that cost as much as the computer did. :-(
> >> 
> >> But at least my sysadmin didn't give me The Look he used when I told
> >> him about setting up UUCP so my 3b1 could trade email with my Linux
> >> boxes.  He's a Model 100 nut so he's not completely unsympathetic,
> >> but he does have limits. ;-)  He gets this wonderful look of abject
> >> terror when I say things like "I wonder if Taylor UUCP has been
> >> compiled for MS-DOS with a packet driver."
> >> 
> >> Humm, I wonder if Rick Adam's UUCP would work over a Drivewire 4
> >> network link....  HDB config files aren't *that* obscure... :-)
> >> 
> >> Hehehe!
> >> Willard
> > 
> > Hehe.  I'll 2nd that.  And no they aren't.  It takes a while to grok
> > them, but with enough connecting of the dots, its pretty much all
> > there.
> > 
> > I've been toying with the idea of setting up the dw4 stuffs here, but
> > the one question I've asked, is one no one has hazarded a guess
> > answer, a SWAG if you will, of how long I can make one of those
> > cables and expect it to work.  I can't get the run down to any great
> > amount less than 25 feet here without re-arranging the whole house
> > and still get it to work at at least 230k.  At that length, we
> > definitely have a transmission line that might have to have active
> > drivers and active terms on both ends.
> > 
> > Anybody want to offer a SWAG?
> 
> As for the serial cable length, I was having trouble with a 6 footer,
> and was advised to keep it as short as possible.  I went to 3 feet, and
> the problems (io errors) dissapeared.
> 
> I am using a usb-to-serial adapter, so I got me a 12 foot USB extension
> cable for a total of 15 feet.  That works without a hitch.  So,  IMHO,
> keep the serial cable SHORT, and make the USB long.  :-)
> 
> Good Luck!
> 
> TIm

I have a usb cable & hub down there now, connected to the bit banger and 
that laser printer, and I had to play mix & match with hubs (I have 4 or 5 
of them) to find a combo that works well for that.  I am right at the 
ragged end of the max 16 foot usb cable that you can get to work if the far 
end of the cable is also a hub/booster.  FDTI cables of course, don't even 
consider a pl2303 in that chain.  You can't clean up after that litter of 
kittens fast enough.

From that, I presume its not a problem to run at various bit rates as long 
as they are within say 5% or less of one of the accepted baud rates for a 
serial interface.  So in order to print from the coco, I have to first use 
tuneport to set the bitbanger at a true 9600 baud, then set /p to be the 
bitbanger.  Then I can "list filename >/p" so it goes up the cable at 9600 
baud, (that cable runs at 9600 baud and is itself about 12 feet long, with 
much of it coiled up out of the way) and is received up here by a script I 
wrote that runs as a daemon, and which collects that data into a file, and 
when no new data has arrived for 2 or 3 seconds, then hands the received 
file off to the cups drivers for that Brother laser, and about 4 seconds 
after the data leds on the ser-usb adapter stop flickering, the laser will 
go into a quick drum pre-heat of 5 or 7 seconds, and then start spitting 
out the paper at 22 pages/minute.  Fastest printer ever for a coco.  ;-)

Most jobs are done in less than 1 minute, the longest a fresh copy of the 
main docs for emc-2.45 (300 some pages, took a paper reload and about 15 
minutes total)  Obviously I use it for other stuff too. ;)

Someone, I don't recall who now, said that with dw4, one could assign one 
of its 256 virtual disks such that anything stored to that disk, actually 
was sent to the printer, and I'd like to do that as it would truly free up 
the bitbanger port for dw's exclusive use.  I considered trying to write a 
/p descriptor that was actually /t3 (Rogers bt pack), but that just isn't 
dependable enough, I have yet to keep a terminal proggy logged into the 
coco over it for more than about 16 hours straight.  At some point, the 
signal gets weak, and the both machines must be rebooted and the devices 
re-paired to make it work for a few hours again.  My way right now, Just 
Works(TM) but it ties up the bitbanger too.

Has anyone, using a short 3 or 4 foot cable to a decent FDTI ser-usb 
adapter, made that work at 460k?  I am fresh out of those 4 pin din 
connectors and they are no longer a shack stocked item.  Also I have noted 
that neither Mark nor Roger, seems to be offering that cable ready made, so 
who has the parts and is selling them?

Thanks all.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth
to a child.  She must be found and stopped.
		-- Sam Levenson