Hi all,
I cannot get my Altair 8800 to talk to my laptop (Win XP, Realterm and Tera Term, using USB to DB25 adaptor) via SSM IO-4 board even with correct connection settings. Quite disappointing that it still cannot function to its max capability, really hope it can boot to Basic 4K/8K and communicate through terminal screen rather than just front panel switches.
As most of the references from the web is about how to boot using MITS 88-2 SIO board and it seems that the bootloader is specific to board (even revision, as shown in Basic manual) and Basic version and I do not have the expertise to establish dedicated bootloader for SSM IO-4 board to boot (the excellent Solivant.com bootloader instruction even could not help in my case). I still tried to follow the Solivant instruction, and it seems the laptop could connect to the Altair as I could type characters in the emulator screen, but when I sent the same Basic 4k .tag file in Tera Term as instructed in Solivant, I could only get random characters just like when the file is opened in text editor; when I send Basic 4k .bin file in Realterm, it could display Memory size+ but followed by repeated "Realterm" words and when I pressed enter there was no response except the cursor went back to the first place but not the next line and nothing happened.
I am thinking to build MITS 88-2 SIO board from scratches, as there are so many people have succeeded in using it to loading Basic and communicating with other peripheral. It seems the components used in the originals are still in the market and just think it is still possible to replicate. I know Grant Stocky has done an excellent job in replicating the Altair and the boards (I am late to the hobby and missed his great kits) but instead of waiting one (original or replica) for sales somewhere, I will make one. I am now working on CAD and hope to have one high resolution showing the back of the board, so as to finish the layout of the board. Could someone help?
Michael
I cannot get my Altair 8800 to talk to my laptop (Win XP, Realterm and Tera Term, using USB to DB25 adaptor) via SSM IO-4 board even with correct connection settings. Quite disappointing that it still cannot function to its max capability, really hope it can boot to Basic 4K/8K and communicate through terminal screen rather than just front panel switches.
As most of the references from the web is about how to boot using MITS 88-2 SIO board and it seems that the bootloader is specific to board (even revision, as shown in Basic manual) and Basic version and I do not have the expertise to establish dedicated bootloader for SSM IO-4 board to boot (the excellent Solivant.com bootloader instruction even could not help in my case). I still tried to follow the Solivant instruction, and it seems the laptop could connect to the Altair as I could type characters in the emulator screen, but when I sent the same Basic 4k .tag file in Tera Term as instructed in Solivant, I could only get random characters just like when the file is opened in text editor; when I send Basic 4k .bin file in Realterm, it could display Memory size+ but followed by repeated "Realterm" words and when I pressed enter there was no response except the cursor went back to the first place but not the next line and nothing happened.
I am thinking to build MITS 88-2 SIO board from scratches, as there are so many people have succeeded in using it to loading Basic and communicating with other peripheral. It seems the components used in the originals are still in the market and just think it is still possible to replicate. I know Grant Stocky has done an excellent job in replicating the Altair and the boards (I am late to the hobby and missed his great kits) but instead of waiting one (original or replica) for sales somewhere, I will make one. I am now working on CAD and hope to have one high resolution showing the back of the board, so as to finish the layout of the board. Could someone help?
Michael