• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Info on Solid State Music IO4 serial card

K

kingchops

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 11, 2011
Messages
179
Location
Adelaide, AUSTRALIA
I've managed to get hold of a Solid State Music IO4 serial card. Is anyone
using one for their Altair?

The board I have is configured to replicate an Altair Rev. 1 serial board, i.e.
it has the 74(LS)368 chip installed in U18 as per the manual.

I'm under the impression that this card replicates a Mits 88-SIO-A board and not
and 88-2SIO, does anyone know if this is correct?

In my initial tests with the card I wired up a simple null modem cable from
serial A on the card to a db9/usb serial cable to the pc. I only
connected three wires RX, TX and GND, crossing over RX and TX. Any info on
whether this is sufficient would be appreciated also.

Port addressing is another issue, I tried setting Serial A to ports 0 & 1 and
then to 20 & 21, but from what I've read this depends on whether the card
replicates a 88SIO-A or 88-2SIO.
 
What are you trying ultimately to accomplish? Basic on the altair?

Start with the echo characters program found in the altair serial board manual or altair basic manual. There are variants of this program for each type of altair serial board and you can toggle in the echo chars program to trouobleshoot your pin mapping to the serial cable while you simultaneously see which echo chars program works better..thus which altair you are emulating...

Is there an echo chars or test program for the ssm card? Has the card been checked out to confirm it's working correctly as the ssm default io card?
 
Hi All;
I have the Board, I have not used it in my Altair, in a long time, So I'LL have to look, at how I have it wired.. But, If I remember right mine had 74367's in it.. I dug out my Board, it has a the header for the Serial B (W2), but not for the Serial A.. I cannot find my Manual for it right now, but will (Hopefully) find it tomorrow, it has Penciled in the correct jumpers for the W2's, mine for serial B has pin 4 (Dav) tied to pin 16, and pin 5 tied to pin 9..
THANK YOU Marty
 
Last edited:
Hi Kingchops;
Send me a PM with Your Email address, and I will send you a copy of my manual, with everything (All the notes) penciled in...
THANK YOU Marty
 
Hi All;
Here is another Echo program that checks everything, it will need the Altair inialization on the front of it.. It origionally was for another Board, but should be able to be modified to suit your needs..
0000 3e 00 Start MVI A,00H Initialize the
0002 D3 01 out Control Control Port
0004 DB 01 Begin In Status Input Status and
0006 E6 02 Ani 02H Mask for Dav
0008 CA 04 00 JZ Begin If Nothing/Check again
000B DB 00 In Data If DAV-1 input Data and
000D 47 Mov B,A Move to Register B
000E DB 01 LOOP In Status Input Status and
0010 E6 01 Ani 01H Mask for TBMT
0012 CA 0E 00 JZ Loop If not Ready, Check again
0015 78 Mov A,B If TBMT-1, move Data into
0016 D3 00 Out Data Register A, then Output it
0018 C3 04 00 Jump Begin Jump Next Character
Thats it.. I had Spaces but the Blog took them out..
THANK YOU Marty
 
billdeg said:
What are you trying ultimately to accomplish? Basic on the altair?

Start with the echo characters program found in the altair serial board manual or altair basic manual. There are variants of this program for each type of altair serial board and you can toggle in the echo chars program to trouobleshoot your pin mapping to the serial cable while you simultaneously see which echo chars program works better..thus which altair you are emulating...

Is there an echo chars or test program for the ssm card? Has the card been checked out to confirm it's working correctly as the ssm default io card?
Click to expand...


Yes, I want to try and load 4k Basic. I'm using in the rev 1 echo program from the Altair Basic reference manual (8/25/75). I have a working Cromemco Bytemover in my Altair so I've loaded the echo prog onto an eprom which makes loading it easier. I may try and load a few different versions for testing. I think my main issue is the serial cable.

There is no echo program included in the SSMIO4 manual. I'm not really sure what to check on the card aside from trying to get it to echo characters. In the tests that I've done, one promising sign is that it seems to react to the connection from Realterm. I can open a connection without error and I can get green lights in Realterm for CTS, DCD and DSR. And also when I power off the Altair from running the echo program I get a break signal in Realterm. I can also get a TX signal when I send characters to the Atlair but I can't get a RX from the serial card/Altair.
 
Marty said:
Hi All;
I have the Board, I have not used it in my Altair, in a long time, So I'LL have to look, at how I have it wired.. But, If I remember right mine had 74367's in it.. I dug out my Board, it has a the header for the Serial B (W2), but not for the Serial A.. I cannot find my Manual for it right now, but will (Hopefully) find it tomorrow, it has Penciled in the correct jumpers for the W2's, mine for serial B has pin 4 (Dav) tied to pin 16, and pin 5 tied to pin 9..
THANK YOU Marty
Click to expand...

Marty,

Yours seem to be set up for Altair rev 0 as it has the 74367's, mine has 74368's in U16 and U18. But W2 is for Serial A and W1 for Serial B. And the connections should be as follows:

Altair rev 1
pin 4 to 9
pin 5 to 16

Altair rev 0
pin 4 to 14
pin 5 t0 10

Would love to get some more info on how your cable is wired, possibly a pic of the db connector if you can.
 
I have a feeling that my main issue is the serial cable that I'm using from the card to my db9 usb cable. Here is the section from the manual that describes the cable:

SSMIO4_cableing_zps443e8f08.gif


The card has a 14 pin dip socket and what I've done is inserted pins into the dip socket and then onto the db9 connector on the serial to USB cable. Here's how I wired it up:

db9 pin => dip header pin

2 to 1
3 to 11
5 to 9
6 to 9
8 to 9
7 to 8

And jumper between dip pins 12 & 13.

I'm not sure what it means on the diagram about the connection between 9 & 12?

I did also try and swap the RX,TX pins to see if that was the issue but no luck.
 

Attachments

  • SSMIO4_cableing.jpg
    SSMIO4_cableing.jpg
    18.6 KB · Views: 1
Hi King;
mine is wired a little different, and I am using a DB-25, instead of a DB-9.. I know I mis-spoke about the W2 for serial A and Serial B, I didn't have my manual with me and didn't know what the label was for Serial B of the W?..
on the Serial connection I have,
pin 1 (on 14 pin header) to DB-25 pin 2
pins 7 and 8 to DB-25 pin 7
pin 9 to DB-25 pin 5
pin 11 to DB-25 pin 3
pin 12 to 13 on the header
I hope this helps..
THANK YOU Marty
 
Hi All;
Tomorrow I will plug in my SSMIO4 into my Altair, and let you know I come up with.. Also, there is on either Switch, (position 1 on mine) Labeled "PR" and IF it is in the Wrong (not correct) position, it will make it, so the Board will not talk to the Altair.. it switches the data and the status lines, in one position it has data first and status second, and in the other position it has status first and then data..
THANK YOU Marty
 
Those signal names in diagram 4.6 refer to a db-25 connector. Some of them are in different locations on a de-9. For example, pin 5 on a db-25 is CTS, on a de-9 it's the signal ground. On your cable you appear to have SG, DSR, and CTS connected together on DIP-9. Could this be part of your problem?
 
Marty said:
Hi All;
Tomorrow I will plug in my SSMIO4 into my Altair, and let you know I come up with.. Also, there is on either Switch, (position 1 on mine) Labeled "PR" and IF it is in the Wrong (not correct) position, it will make it, so the Board will not talk to the Altair.. it switches the data and the status lines, in one position it has data first and status second, and in the other position it has status first and then data..
THANK YOU Marty
Click to expand...

Marty,

Will be good to see how it goes. I've set the PR switch to off as recommended by the manaul for MITS software. This sets it to status first and data port last.
 
Dutch said:
Those signal names in diagram 4.6 refer to a db-25 connector. Some of them are in different locations on a de-9. For example, pin 5 on a db-25 is CTS, on a de-9 it's the signal ground. On your cable you appear to have SG, DSR, and CTS connected together on DIP-9. Could this be part of your problem?
Click to expand...

Dutch,

This is a good point, I was sure to use a diagram for a db9 so I could connect the right pins and I noticed that some were different to the db25.
 
Hi All;
Just to let you know, I mis-spoke when earlier, I stated that the inizialization need to go before the echo program, that I put out, I was thinking of an Altair board, and not the SSM board.. The SSM board Does not need the initialization that the Altair does.. I am going to first try some of the things on the Second port of my Altair Board, to see what actually works and what does not work, then I can try these same things on the SSM.. I am going to stay at first with both my Altair, and the SSM away from the port address of the first port of the Altair, so that , the program in my Eprom Monitor which talks to the Altairs first port, does not interact with what I am doing.. Allowing me to think that something works, when it may no work but is using that port.. I can connect two TeraTerms up at a time on my PC.
THANK YOU Marty
 
Hi All;
I got the SSMIO4 to work.. First, I got the parameters for my Altair 88-2-sio board, my Board says rev 0, But since IT is a Grant Reproduction, IT acts like (what I am told) a Rev 1.. DAV is 01, and TBMT is 07.. With that figured out, I set up my SSIO4 and the program I had listed in an earlier posting.. and after trying a number of things, I found that It has to have 74367's and NOT 74368's or it will NOT work.. Even when (with the 368's) substituting C2 for CA, it still will not work.. It only works with 367's.. I don't know Why !!!!
THANK YOU Marty
 
Marty said:
Hi All;
I got the SSMIO4 to work.. First, I got the parameters for my Altair 88-2-sio board, my Board says rev 0, But since IT is a Grant Reproduction, IT acts like (what I am told) a Rev 1.. DAV is 01, and TBMT is 07.. With that figured out, I set up my SSIO4 and the program I had listed in an earlier posting.. and after trying a number of things, I found that It has to have 74367's and NOT 74368's or it will NOT work.. Even when (with the 368's) substituting C2 for CA, it still will not work.. It only works with 367's.. I don't know Why !!!!
THANK YOU Marty
Click to expand...

That's great Marty, this is really good info. My card has 7438's in both serial A & B so not sure if the previous owner got it to work like that or just made an attempt. But as it happens I have a Cromemco TUART which has 74367's on it so I've removed them and will try them on the SSMIO4. I've ordered some parts to make up some proper cables, so I'll update this thread with progress as soon as I get those done.
 
Marty said:
Hi King;
mine is wired a little different, and I am using a DB-25, instead of a DB-9.. I know I mis-spoke about the W2 for serial A and Serial B, I didn't have my manual with me and didn't know what the label was for Serial B of the W?..
on the Serial connection I have,
pin 1 (on 14 pin header) to DB-25 pin 2
pins 7 and 8 to DB-25 pin 7
pin 9 to DB-25 pin 5
pin 11 to DB-25 pin 3
pin 12 to 13 on the header
I hope this helps..
THANK YOU Marty
Click to expand...

Marty,

I finally got round to making a cable following these directions for wiring, I also used your echo program. Unfortunately I still haven't got it to work. Not sure but I think the echo prog is configured for Serial B and I was using a so I'll take another look at that and try it again.
 
Hi King;
The Echo program, was a generic one, it needed to be configured for the type of boards and ports you have.. Also, make sure that Your speed (Baud Rate) and configuration (8Bits, No Parity, 1 stop bit, and NO Hardware Shaking) are what you are set up for.. Also, I used to get From Radio Shack or you can find them online is a Led Signal Box or a Breakout Box, for the Serial ports.. I have them for Rs-232 (DB-25) pinout, I don't know If you can get them for DB-9 Pinout.. But, it would be a good Idea to get yourself one.. Then set the Baud rate to very SLOOOOOW (like 110 Baud) and you can see the LED's change color, as the Bits go by.. That would help locate Your Trouble..
THANK YOU Marty
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top