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Informer 207/102-v22 smart terminal with VT52 & VT-102 epoms

I

inotarobot

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 7, 2014
Messages
1,090
Location
Melbourne, Australia
Hi all,

Well late 2016 this very cute portable smart terminal / workstation as Informer called it, came up for sale in Perth, Australia.

I was lucky enough to purchase it. Seeing it has a CRT rather than LCD screen, I was really worried that it would not survive the journey across Australia to Melbourne. Thankfully it did. It was super well triple packed. Came it its own original carry bag with user manuals.

So here are some pics

Informer 207/102-v22 Gumtree ad pic 1. dated 9/2016, of unit I luckly purchased for Aus $300

rSBkey6.jpg


Informer 207/102-v22 Gumtree ad pic 2. dated 9/2016,

4hGNyID.jpg


Informer 207/102-v22 Gumtree ad pic 3. dated 9/2016,
O4AKn2z.jpg


Following pics are from the unit, thats now on my work bench

Pic of the unit running. Taken in B/W for clarity.

nZ0zrnD.jpg


Pic of Main Mother Board Note it runs a Zilog Z80 CPU. I try and take a clear one next time I open machine.

opqmjyP.jpg


Pics of the eproms

JWQZAl2.jpg


PtP69Zj.jpg
 
tingo said:
Perhaps you could add to the Informer 207 page at the Teminals wiki: http://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/Informer_207
Click to expand...


Hi Torfinn,
i missed you post here. Yes, that's a good idea and I will do that.

Also what I need to do is grab a copy of the roms and post them on bitsavers.

its possible when other foke that see the non VT102 version of this terminal come up for sale, that they could get it cheap and blow new roms to make it VT102.

Also looking back at my pics I noticed the unit has a button battery, so I need to get unit open and change battery.
 
I just picked up the 376 version of the Informer 207. I'm curious if a ROM swap with the ones from your 102 would make it the VT102 version. Any chance that you've dumped the ROMs from yours?
 
Hi all, I have to really appologise for my tardyness in not getting on with a few great suggestions made to this thread.

Recently Mattis asked me if I still had the manuals, so yesterday while we had good weather I opened the room it was stored in and dragged out into the open enough to get at the bag it is still in.

Brought it up into house and started to scan Manuals. At the moment they are done, be it in split pdf due to scanner feed jam ( no pages damaged).. So I will have to figure out how to edit and join the files together to make the 2 manuals I have as matching pdf's.

I took the chance to power the unit up and it ran for about 15mins before I LOST total house power. The unit has tripped my earth leakage circuit breaker for all the house 240V power points.

So I decided to open it and look if there was any obvious signs of swelling caps or like.

STUNNED to find one of the 2 mesh screens that were glue'd inside the outer case under the vent slots had come away and was touching live circuits.

SO fokes if you have one of these or its sister machines OPEN it and check if the glue had dried out and let the metal mesh screen come away from the inside of the case.

OJyWn9j.jpg



also I took a clearer photo of the main processing pcb with the Z80

YEw1I4m.jpg
 
legalize said:
Scans of the manuals would be most appreciated! I think most of us (myself included) have the terminal without the manual.
Click to expand...

Hi and as I said my appologies for not extracting my ""Australian Didgette"" out of my rectum and getting on with getting machine out and scanning manual.

I have done it today. Just need to tidy up the pdf's or if you wish to PM me a email address I can send you the Google drive link as a starting point.
 
Last edited:
Al Kossow said:
while you have it apart, could you dump the firmware?
Click to expand...

Hi Al, yes I plan to dump the firmware while it's open.

I wish to first say this time around I feel VERY nervous doing it as I have not used my EPROM programmer/reader for a very long while and have completely forgotten how to use it. I am not even sure if I have a machine with software that runs it.

Today 27th July I will go and get it out and have a look and if I feel the need will ask folks on here for assistance.

We are so "Locked down" I cannot drive to any of the Commercial places I know of that have a Professional Programmer. Mind you I really doubt they would be open either.
 
inotarobot said:
Hi Al, yes I plan to dump the firmware while it's open.

I wish to first say this time around I feel VERY nervous doing it as I have not used my EPROM programmer/reader for a very long while and have completely forgotten how to use it. I am not even sure if I have a machine with software that runs it.

Today 27th July I will go and get it out and have a look and if I feel the need will ask folks on here for assistance.

We are so "Locked down" I cannot drive to any of the Commercial places I know of that have a Professional Programmer. Mind you I really doubt they would be open either.
Click to expand...

EDIT .. I went and got out my Programmer and its a Sivava V508 but I cannot find any board revision marking at all... even when I took of the plastic sheet on bottom. I just googled it and looks like its not super painful to use.

What I will do though is I have a full tube of programmed eproms I picked up at ewaste so I will "play reading them first".
The code in them mean nothing to me but it will give me a refresher to using this programmer.

It may also be a good idea to write to a blank eprom of same type as whats in this terminal then read back to check. Anyways i will take time and advice before I attempt a read of my Informer 207 roms

Looking at it I note it talks via Printer Port so thats going to be fun to find the cable and then see if I still have a puter with a parallel port loaded with the needed software

and I note it has 2 ways of powering it USB or Plug Pack so at least that part is easy

oTegLpG.jpg


wA6mBGJ.jpg
 
Last edited:
inotarobot said:
Hi Tingo could you help then as I am not sure how to do what you suggest.
Click to expand...

The usual way is to get an account on the Terminals wiki, as described in the "How Can I Contribute?" section on the main page. I prefer this option, as it shows which person(s) has contributed what to the wiki.

inotarobot said:
All my Informer 207 pics can be found at https://imgur.com/a/t9mb8cT
Click to expand...
If for some reason you don't want to get an account on the Terminals wiki, I can upload the pictures there. Just let me know.
 
I have that willem/sivava programmer too and it runs under windows 10.
But I need to start the program with right clicking and run as administrator.
Otherwise it has no access to the LPT port and I get a hardware failure...

And don't forget, you have to set the programming voltage manually...

Regards, Roland.
 
Just ran across this and I had to join the group. I have a 207/376 and I absolutely love it. I originally thought I was buying a VT100 compatible terminal (it's one of the 3270 compatible variants) but now kind of glad it wasn't as I had a lot more fun trying to get it working.

I've made a small WiFi dongle that you can plug into the back, play Infocom games, use TN3270 to telnet into 3270 compatible services (only thing I know of is running the Hercules mainframe emulator), SSH into modern computers (although with no VT100 terminal emulation) and browse Wikipedia (just for fun, it doesn't work very well). I've made a video here...

https://youtu.be/U6nj1dibTCA

Everything I did is in a GitHub at...

https://github.com/charcole/zmachine3270

To get it all working I did have to reverse engineer a lot of how the terminal works and even made an emulator of it in MAME (a real terminal emulator) to help debug the firmware. The ROM dumps with disassembly (with a small amount of comments) is on my github. Because of this unfortunately I don't think a ROM swap to convert it to a VT100 will work (although I'm still interested to see them!). The 376 is based around a 6809 CPU and a Z80 SCC but the board shots posted looks like the VT100 is a Z80 CPU and a Z80 SIO. So completely different architectures.

Interestingly there's a motherboard for the VT100 version on eBay (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DEC-Informer-207-VT100-Computer-Terminal-Motherboard-EL507/264558641784) at the moment that does looks like a 6809 CPU like the 376. I was tempted but it's rather expensive to get it shipped to the UK. I would love to get a dump of those ROMs (although one of the EPROMS looks like it's lost it's sticker so maybe it's contents are gone). I am slightly tempted to write my own VT100 ROM for it but I do already have it doing pretty much everything I want it to do already. I am sad not to be able to run Vim on it though.

Charlie
 
charcole said:
Just ran across this and I had to join the group. I have a 207/376 and I absolutely love it. I originally thought I was buying a VT100 compatible terminal (it's one of the 3270 compatible variants) but now kind of glad it wasn't as I had a lot more fun trying to get it working.

I've made a small WiFi dongle that you can plug into the back, play Infocom games, use TN3270 to telnet into 3270 compatible services (only thing I know of is running the Hercules mainframe emulator), SSH into modern computers (although with no VT100 terminal emulation) and browse Wikipedia (just for fun, it doesn't work very well). I've made a video here...

https://youtu.be/U6nj1dibTCA

Everything I did is in a GitHub at...

https://github.com/charcole/zmachine3270

To get it all working I did have to reverse engineer a lot of how the terminal works and even made an emulator of it in MAME (a real terminal emulator) to help debug the firmware. The ROM dumps with disassembly (with a small amount of comments) is on my github. Because of this unfortunately I don't think a ROM swap to convert it to a VT100 will work (although I'm still interested to see them!). The 376 is based around a 6809 CPU and a Z80 SCC but the board shots posted looks like the VT100 is a Z80 CPU and a Z80 SIO. So completely different architectures.

Interestingly there's a motherboard for the VT100 version on eBay (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DEC-Informer-207-VT100-Computer-Terminal-Motherboard-EL507/264558641784) at the moment that does looks like a 6809 CPU like the 376. I was tempted but it's rather expensive to get it shipped to the UK. I would love to get a dump of those ROMs (although one of the EPROMS looks like it's lost it's sticker so maybe it's contents are gone). I am slightly tempted to write my own VT100 ROM for it but I do already have it doing pretty much everything I want it to do already. I am sad not to be able to run Vim on it though.

Charlie
Click to expand...

Hi Charlie, welcome to this group and I am certain you will make lots of friends and get and give lots of help.

I will enjoy looking at both your github and youtube posts.

regards
David
 
charcole said:
Just ran across this and I had to join the group. I have a 207/376 and I absolutely love it. I originally thought I was buying a VT100 compatible terminal (it's one of the 3270 compatible variants) but now kind of glad it wasn't as I had a lot more fun trying to get it working.

I've made a small WiFi dongle that you can plug into the back, play Infocom games, use TN3270 to telnet into 3270 compatible services (only thing I know of is running the Hercules mainframe emulator), SSH into modern computers (although with no VT100 terminal emulation) and browse Wikipedia (just for fun, it doesn't work very well). I've made a video here...

https://youtu.be/U6nj1dibTCA

Everything I did is in a GitHub at...

https://github.com/charcole/zmachine3270

To get it all working I did have to reverse engineer a lot of how the terminal works and even made an emulator of it in MAME (a real terminal emulator) to help debug the firmware. The ROM dumps with disassembly (with a small amount of comments) is on my github. Because of this unfortunately I don't think a ROM swap to convert it to a VT100 will work (although I'm still interested to see them!). The 376 is based around a 6809 CPU and a Z80 SCC but the board shots posted looks like the VT100 is a Z80 CPU and a Z80 SIO. So completely different architectures.

Interestingly there's a motherboard for the VT100 version on eBay (https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DEC-Informer-207-VT100-Computer-Terminal-Motherboard-EL507/264558641784) at the moment that does looks like a 6809 CPU like the 376. I was tempted but it's rather expensive to get it shipped to the UK. I would love to get a dump of those ROMs (although one of the EPROMS looks like it's lost it's sticker so maybe it's contents are gone). I am slightly tempted to write my own VT100 ROM for it but I do already have it doing pretty much everything I want it to do already. I am sad not to be able to run Vim on it though.

Charlie
Click to expand...

Hello Charlie!

Fantastic work. Very well done!

This is a quite amazing coincidence! We have been working on very similar things at approximately the same time! In June I started a project to understand my Informer 213 (successor of the 207) terminal a bit better. It resulted in a small SDLC implementation in a STM32 micro controller. When looking into your github it appears that you as well use the SPI port for the sync communication!

This is my SDLCBridge project.

I have taken a slightly different route when it comes to interfacing to Hercules and it is not yet finished. I am working on modifying the comm3705.c module to allow Hercules interfacing through the 3705 emulation.

The reason for I am not finished is partly because my initial focus has been to interface a Alfaskop terminal, an IBM 3278 compatible terminal, to the 2703 emulation inside Hercules. But this weekend I finally got the BSC implementation working, BSCBridge. It uses the same hardware as the SDLCBridge firmware above which I called SyncDongle. SyncDongle is just a STM32 BluePill, two levelconverter chips and a couple connectors.
Youtube clip 1 and 2 on the Alfaskop in action over 2400 bps Sync BSC connection. General info on Alfaskop.

I am bit curious, why was there a need to understand the terminal in such detail that you felt the need to create a MAME emulation? I was thinking it mostly was emulating a 3277 terminal with integrated 3274? What were your findings? Did the terminal deviate from the 3270 Data Stream in major ways?

The Infomer 213 is also 6809 based. I have put some information on it here. I have VT100 EPROM dumps from an Informer 213, but not exactly the same model as mine which makes me think they would not work. If you are interested I could send you those.

/Mattis
 
(Sorry if this appears very late, my posts might still be being moderated)

Hi Mattis,

Yeah, weird we're doing similar things at the same time! Really enjoyed looking through your links. That Alfaskop terminal looks great. Will have to give them a proper read over the weekend as I'm interested in your approach. Also how to configure Hercules as I really had no clue about that. I'd really like to configure it in such a way the login and opening menu work (without using extended attributes).

As for your question, I started on the MAME emulator mainly because I always like to get one thing working at a time to avoid having to work out what of several things could be broken. Mainly I wasn't sure if I could get anything displayed on the screen at all without going through the whole SNA startup sequence. In hindsight just sending the Set Normal Mode message made a visible change on the screen (a '?' next to the 6 in the status bar) so I think I could have just as easily come at in from the hardware side. As it was I went from seeing the question mark to having it basically fully working came in an evening as I'd done all the ground work before. A secondary more practical answer was doing the work digitally was easier at the time as I was between houses at that point and the terminal itself was packed away for an extended period.

To go into it a bit more, I'd found https://www.cliffa1994.com/snasteps.htm that had a capture of the messages going back and forth and that's basically what I used to work through the startup sequence. I can't remember now what I had to change but I couldn't have just replayed that sequence and got something displaying. I think the ACTPU and BIND calls ended up being different. I mainly just changed the bits the debugger was indicating were wrong and continued from there until it connected properly. I also struggled a bit with how to handle the change of direction messages as that wasn't covered. I've since found some better documentation which would have made the whole process much easier but it worked and I had good confidence due to the emulator that point if I could work out the hardware side (and generate the correct CRCs) then it'd all work fine.

On a related note, another thing I wish I'd found out about earlier was BSC as it seems a bit easier to work with than SNA. This whole thing has been a journey of discovery for me which has been quite fun :)

I believe the 207 has an integrated 3276 control unit (I at least get a 6 on the status line) and the document from here (http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/...y-Station-Description-and-Programmer-s-Guide/) that I found last night seems to match exactly with it's capabilities. I'm not sure how a 3274 and 3276 differ though.

I'd definitely be really interested in those EPROM dumps if you are willing to share, both the 3270 and VT100 ones. It'd be interesting to see how they differ to each other and the ones in mine.

Charlie
 
Hello Charlie!

I will send you a PM, but I am not sure if it works since you're a very new member.

charcole said:
(Sorry if this appears very late, my posts might still be being moderated)

Hi Mattis,

Yeah, weird we're doing similar things at the same time! Really enjoyed looking through your links. That Alfaskop terminal looks great. Will have to give them a proper read over the weekend as I'm interested in your approach. Also how to configure Hercules as I really had no clue about that. I'd really like to configure it in such a way the login and opening menu work (without using extended attributes).
Click to expand...

Well. Maybe I a very tiny clue about Hercules itself now. But the MVS operating system is something completely different. That is tough to learn. I probably still know next to nothing. I think the best approach is to build the system by hand from scratch. You'll learn a lot from that, I can assure you. Jay Moseley has provided an excellent instruction on how to do that.

charcole said:
As for your question, I started on the MAME emulator mainly because I always like to get one thing working at a time to avoid having to work out what of several things could be broken. Mainly I wasn't sure if I could get anything displayed on the screen at all without going through the whole SNA startup sequence. In hindsight just sending the Set Normal Mode message made a visible change on the screen (a '?' next to the 6 in the status bar) so I think I could have just as easily come at in from the hardware side. As it was I went from seeing the question mark to having it basically fully working came in an evening as I'd done all the ground work before. A secondary more practical answer was doing the work digitally was easier at the time as I was between houses at that point and the terminal itself was packed away for an extended period.
Click to expand...

I understand your decision. Unfortunately I am not very used to the MAME structure so I haven't been able to create any emulations in MAME. It si probably one of the best way to preserve the knowledge how some thing works. The code can include almost all details if one want to it on that level. Great work there! And then then bonus to work more easily when developing other code.

charcole said:
To go into it a bit more, I'd found https://www.cliffa1994.com/snasteps.htm that had a capture of the messages going back and forth and that's basically what I used to work through the startup sequence. I can't remember now what I had to change but I couldn't have just replayed that sequence and got something displaying. I think the ACTPU and BIND calls ended up being different. I mainly just changed the bits the debugger was indicating were wrong and continued from there until it connected properly. I also struggled a bit with how to handle the change of direction messages as that wasn't covered. I've since found some better documentation which would have made the whole process much easier but it worked and I had good confidence due to the emulator that point if I could work out the hardware side (and generate the correct CRCs) then it'd all work fine.
Click to expand...

SNA is a hell of a system, really. I just understand a tiny tiny part of it. You'll understand when you have a look at all those links to documents I have included on my pages. I linked to document that Cliff Anderson compiled as well, actually. CRC was a bit of a pain. I though I know the polynom. But still had problems. But here IBM had a very useful document describing the CRC process in almost ridiculous detail. It helped. Then I had actual SDLC hardware, an Intel 8274 chip, that I programmed and made the first tests against.

charcole said:
On a related note, another thing I wish I'd found out about earlier was BSC as it seems a bit easier to work with than SNA. This whole thing has been a journey of discovery for me which has been quite fun :)
Click to expand...
It is is simpler in a sense but more complex in another sense. For SDLC you have one single packet structure all the time. While BSC had all those control characters that change state various ways.

charcole said:
I believe the 207 has an integrated 3276 control unit (I at least get a 6 on the status line) and the document from here (http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/...y-Station-Description-and-Programmer-s-Guide/) that I found last night seems to match exactly with it's capabilities. I'm not sure how a 3274 and 3276 differ though.
Click to expand...

I think it is a bit how they packaged things. A 3276 is essentially a 3277 terminal with a built in 3274 controller for just one terminal. While 3275 has a built in 3274 for 8 ports (I think). Then the 3274 is a standalone device which you could hook up terminals to. But you're correct. Your machine is a 3276 clone. The Informer 213 is a 3178 + 3274 clone. But just one terminal. Then there are the more modern 3174 which exist in various models.

I do think that there can be interest in your project on the H390-Legacy-Hardware groups.io mailing list. It should be possible to use that to hook up 3174s with the associated terminals to Hercules this way. Do an announcement there!

charcole said:
I'd definitely be really interested in those EPROM dumps if you are willing to share, both the 3270 and VT100 ones. It'd be interesting to see how they differ to each other and the ones in mine.

Charlie
Click to expand...

Here is a link to EPROMs and a picture of the board. This is not my Informer 213. I had been looking for VT100 EPROMS for some time and then suddenly I guy sent me copies. I will dump the content of the EPROMs in my SNA capable Informer 213.

Here is a link to the manual for the Informer 213 with SNA / BSC support. It is big..

So there has to be a variant of the firmware that can do BSC out there. But I haven't found it.


I will try to send you a PM with email details since it would be easier to share file that way I think!

/Mattis
 
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