[Coco] Rs232 Pack

[Allen Huffman]

> On Feb 26, 2025, at 8:20 PM, Phil Taylor via Coco <coco at maltedmedia.com> wrote:
> 
> If someone can work on restoring support for the RS232 pack with using the
> same original memory address then I will work on making a telnet interface
> server so wee can get Ribbs bbs working again. Its just not the same
> without logging in to a Trs-80 Color Computer BBS with out.


Someone has done an RS232 pak that uses the ESP8266 or maybe ESP32 wifi module in it. It looks like a standard pak but when you put firmware like  ZiModem on it, it is a simulated Hayes modem but you do things like;

ATDsubethasoftware.com:23 <http://atdsubethasoftware.com:23/>

And it does telnet. There are examples in BASIC for Commodore for IRC, Telnet, FTP and other simple protocols (but on CoCo we’d need an assembly assist to go faster than 300 baud I bet).

If you want to experiment, for less than $10 you can wire up an ESP8266 to a .99 RS232-to-TTL adapter, load ZiModem on it, then hook it to an existing RS232 pak (or the bitbanger) and start playing.

This may not be updated but I wrote this up years ago:

https://subethasoftware.com/2018/02/28/wire-up-your-own-rs-232-wifi-modem-for-under-10-using-esp8266-and-zimodem-firmware/

Later I redid the article and tried to organize it better, but this page is the one that remains one of my top-viewed posts.

And I agree. I’d love to know where I could just buy one that has this built in.
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Allen Huffman - PO Box 7634 - Urbandale IA 50323 - 515-999-0227 (vmail/TXT only)
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