40/80 column cartridge

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:02 pm

carlsson wrote:Hm, so you have a manual. What were we going to do with the ROM dump, other than archive it in case someone can build a compatible board? We were trying to find which pointers or calls it patches, but that was only to find which area of memory it was worth dumping.

Well, I would still like to dump the ROM from my board, as it is an EPROM and I'm afraid it's going to die one day, and would like to be able to have it re-burned in that case. I have all the harware needed (multi port expander, VIC to PC cables, etc. etc.) but I have never done anything like this before. I will try and read this thread and when I find the time, do the dump (might be a while though).

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:37 am

ok, i scanned in the manual as soon as i got to work.

the scans are HUGE, about 1.5 megs each and there are five of them.

i had no choice, as my manual is in BAD shape and i had to scan at 300 dpi just to get anything legible, and it barely is at that

i am eventually going to put them on my freenet account, but at the moment i can't access the file manager portion, so i popped them in my vic 20 files yahoo group for now:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vic20files/

sorry about having to join the yahoo group to get the files.

chris

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:22 am

Woo, a total of 9258 kB. It seems to be mostly text, perfect for OCR if the text was not so poor. I can give it a try anyway, and maybe make a text, Word or PDF document out of it.

Feh. The OCR program doesn't recognize GIFs, so I'll have to convert them to another format first - perhaps TIFF or PNG.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 7:15 am

First page of OCR:

VQU neve our=nga*d the Q#te SO _, -, •- -- -w~r vidno esoanoion fo- tiha VlO-Sd. 1C i,| irGrflflse C-;» caraen isir* frnrv 53 linon Of SE itir^ncibsrs CO either " =1 li-ws at BO (
'noyaCjQ ar«edy in She VJC.

and so on. It seems my program skips areas which is too blurry to be considered as text.

Perhaps if you manage to re-scan it in even more crisp quality, it would be possible to work with.

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 7:19 am

the problem is that the actual copy i have is very poor to begin with.

i think it is a photocopy of a printout of a scan, and the scan looks like it was set at an odd setting, as there are lots of ghosty colours around much of the text.

i can try scanning at 600 dpi.

chris

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 8:49 am

carlsson wrote:Woo, a total of 9258 kB. It seems to be mostly text, perfect for OCR if the text was not so poor. I can give it a try anyway, and maybe make a text, Word or PDF document out of it.

Feh. The OCR program doesn't recognize GIFs, so I'll have to convert them to another format first - perhaps TIFF or PNG.

Thanks very much! You've done the VIC community a great service (an I appreciate it too!). Can't wait to play around with my DATA-20 now that I have the manual. It is of poor quality but still legible. I suppose if worst comes to worst it could be re-typed by hand to a text file.

By the way....did you ever find out if you function keys can toggle between 40/80 column mode like it does on my DATA-20 board?

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 8:51 am

Thanks very much! You've done the VIC community a great service (an I appreciate it too!).

Crap! The above was written by me, but I forgot to log in again and it posted under "guest".....sorry.

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 9:06 am

yes, mine does toggle with the function keys, but i don't use it as i also use the prog. aid cart., and they both want to use the function keys

the quality of the manual is bad, in know, but thankfully your first language is english (i am assuming) so hopefully it won't take forever trying to figure out what some of the characters are.

i would assume that someone who does not have english as their first language might have a bit more of a problem trying to figure out some of it.

and i know i have mentioned this before, but coding hires or programmable char. routines using two screens at once is such a joy!

no need to remap any characters so you can read the screen while coding, since you just use the 40/80 card and have the second screen as your doodle board.

the only thing i need to get now for the 40/80 cart, is a proper a/v jack that goes from the din plug to 1 video out and 1 audio out.

right now i am using a cable for a monitor (has the luma, etc..) to go to the video in on a tv, and i get a good signal, as long as i saty in 40 column mode, and 80 columns comes out all screwed up.

but, if i use the din plug to the coaxial antenna of the tv, i get too small of a signal to the tv, and can't really use 40 or 80 columns.

if i use a monitor as my display, i can use 40 or 80 no worries, although i find 80 columns on the commodore monitor not very nice to look at.

however, the tv i am using has a much bigger display, and even using the crappy signal i am currently getting, i can see that 80 columns will be awesome on the tv, once i get a proper video out jack

chris

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 10:07 am

I don't have any problems reading the text in the scans manually, but my computer is not able to do it. And since I don't own a 40 column board, I would not rewrite the manual by hand. If someone comes up with a crisp scan, I might try again (valid for other small-medium sized docs too).

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 11:07 am

carlsson wrote:I don't have any problems reading the text in the scans manually, but my computer is not able to do it. And since I don't own a 40 column board, I would not rewrite the manual by hand. If someone comes up with a crisp scan, I might try again (valid for other small-medium sized docs too).

I have a manual for an old VIC-20 Eprom burner. I don't actually own the burner, just the manul. Would that be of use to anyone? I think it's called Data-Blaster or something similar. Maybe it should be OCR'd and archived.

saundby · Post by **saundby** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:50 pm

I've got a Quantum Data, Inc. 40/80 column board on my Vic (sometimes--I usually work without it nowadays.) It's a pretty straightforward design. It's got an SY6545-1 CRT controller in it (an MC6845 clone.) It plugs into the ROM port, and can be used at the same time as the regular VIC display (which it sounds like the Data-20 unit can do as well), with the display you're talking to swapped through using POKEs.

The board has room for 16K of RAM, but I got mine without since I already had a RAMMaster-32 and didn't want any more.

I've never run into any problems with long lines in BASIC with this adapter. I typically used it in 80-column mode for text with a green Apple monitor.

I used to use my Vic for a number of scientific/engineering applications back in the day, and I remember associates scoffing at the fact that I used a "toy computer" until I showed them my 2-monitor setup with 80-column text on one side and graphical plots of thermal transfer data, etc. on the other side. Most of them didn't have color at all (unless they were on an Apple II, and the people who had those usually knew better than to scoff at another "lowly" 6502 system.)

-Mark G.

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 5:37 am

I typically used it in 80-column mode for text with a green Apple monitor.

woohoo! i just started using my old green screen zenith monitor last week, for the purpose that you described! it is my original monitor for my apple ii.

i was having problems getting a strong signal using 80 column mode to a tv, and bought a din plug to a video and audio rca jacks, and although it improved the picture on the tv, i decided to give the old apple monitor a try.

works fantastic!

i think i now have (for me anyway) a very comfortable programming setup.

i don't know if your apple monitor is similar to my zenith's, but i have a switch in the back for 40 or 80 columns, which is normally used to go from normal apple mode to using the 80 column card and all that (for C/PM etc..)

anyway, by hooking the vic to it with the 40/80 column card, i can get two types of 40 column fonts, by also toggling the 40/80 column swtich on the back of the monitor.

my 2-monitor setup with 80-column text on one side and graphical plots of thermal transfer data, etc. on the other side.

i am still in the early stages of this, but some day i hope to have graphs on one screen and text on the other.

chris

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 10:09 am

Anyone have an old Apple IIc monitor for sale to use with my 40-column board?

vic user · Post by **vic user** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:39 am

i am going to send an e-mail to some fellow vintage computer users in ottawa, and see if anyone has a monitor they are willing to part with.

chris

saundby · Post by **saundby** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:39 pm

The shipping costs on monitors are higher than what they're worth, so it's usually better to find a monitor locally if you possibly can. If there's someone local to me who wants a green screen or black and white composite monitor I have a couple I'd be willing to give away to fellow Vicophiles.

-Mark G.

Denial

40/80 column cartridge

QDI 40/80 column board

Monitors