• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Understanding CP/M...

ETV300 Olivetti machine (ex Understanding CP/M...)

ETV300 Olivetti machine (ex Understanding CP/M...)

Let me make some other tests. At this moment a bit after the POST the serial port goes up turning up CTS, DSR and DCD so it works as a DCE (=modem). I connected the com1 of my pc with teraterm and the pc works like a DTE. I not know if the ETV300 waits for a break key or other keys working with a kind of protocol language . So it not answer at the moment.
I know that other machine could load automatically its boot diskette or wait for a key to do this while they can answer for bios commands.

May you take a check on your documentation of other machine of that time or on the typewriter machines to see if and how they could use the pin 9,10,12 and 13 of their serial ports? They are not generally used on standard serial port. so it seems that those pins could be used for other proprietary use.

Enrico
 
Last edited:
There are several commands that exist to display a lot more information about your system. Try these commands:

STAT DEV:
STAT VAL:
STAT DSK:
STAT USR:

List Directories, of each Drive, for each possible User [0..15], for each of your Floppy's, searching for SYSGEN, MOVCPM, SUBMIT, DDT, etc.

USER 0
DIR A:*.*
DIR B:*.*

USER 1
DIR A:*.*
DIR B:*.*

USER 2
DIR A:*.*
DIR B:*.*

Continue to:

USER 15
DIR A:*.*
DIR B:*.*

File types in Directories follow this description:

FILE TYPES
==========

ASC ASCII text file, usually Basic source
ASM ASseMbly langaige file (source for ASM program)
BAK BAcKup copy file (created by editor)
BAS BASic source program file, usually tokenized
COM COMmand file (transient exeuctable program)
DAT DATa file
DOC DOCument file
FOR FORtran source program file
INT INTermediate Basic program file (executable)
HEX HEXadecimal format file (for LOAD program)
LIB Library file used by macro assembler
PLI PL/I source file
PRN PRiNt file (source and object produced by ASM)
REL RELocatable file
SAV System file (V2.x)
SUB SUBmit text file executed by SUBMIT program
SYM SID symbol file
TEX TEXt formatter source file
XRF Cross reference file
$$$ Temporary file

Filename - 8 characters maximum
Filetype - 3 characters maximum

Invalid filename and filetype characters
< > . , ; : = ? [ ]


That should give you a good idea of what is on your floppy's.

The Attached file has a lot more information for you to look over.


Larry

View attachment CPM_Ref_Guide.txt
 
Last edited:
ldkraemer said:
Invalid filename and filetype characters
< > . , ; : = ? [ ]
Click to expand...

Well, only from the command line interface with programs that have code to check. From the programming interface, just about anything goes that fits into 7 bits. Mixed case, control characters, all fair game. In fact, one of the ways of "hiding" a file name was to pad it with backspace characters. A common thing to see in directories is names with no file name, only a file extension--usually caused by executing ASM with no arguments.
 
Chuck(G) said:
A common thing to see in directories is names with no file name, only a file extension--usually caused by executing ASM with no arguments.
Click to expand...

Yes that happened to me too after running ASM with no args :) I even had a file with no characters or some weird character (I do not remember it exactly anymore) and I could not get rid of it other than formatting dir sectors. MBASIC is another case. Saving file with lowercase name in MBASIC makes it impossible to remove that file from within CP/M - as it converts all filenames to uppercase.
 
Backing on ETV300 argument... Well, my ETV300 case with its crt monitor are ok.
I was lucky because i had 3 / 4 CP/M diskettes so i can boot CP/M.
it appears written :
CP/M R2.2 - BIOS V3B1
(c) 1982 DIGITAL RESEARCH INC.
On the right top of the screen appear a little typewriter.
I have a little object connect to the serial port and i see the etv300 that seems to poll someting.
At the speed 7,e,1 no flow control it should "7E" .
i suspect that the lcu adapter that was present surely to the back of the typewriter works as protocol transfer
so it is not enough to connect a pc with teraterm to works with the etv300...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t2g54kigf60xjpv/AAC2aRWSlFZB0Xq4S5Z5KPe0a?dl=0

Any help??

Enrico
 
Tomorrow I will put in photos of the pages of ET 112 service manual which describes LCU 114 as "ETV 112/116 KIT" to use with ETV 300. But that does not tell anything about protocol, I also haven't found the cable description yet but I have seen it a few weeks ago, I just have to find it again in the plenty manuals I have. I will also check other manuals if I find more there. Unfortunately the battery of my camera is empty at the moment so I can't do it now.

Your disk images seems to be interesting, I browsed through them with a hex monitor, they contain basic.com, format.com diskcopy.com and some other tools, more than my ETV 250 diskettes. But I don't know which utility you used to make them. (IMD format), maybe I can extract these tools and try them on my 250. But the format/copy tools I expect that they won't work as the disk format is different (3,5 inch 80 tracks 320 kb versus 5,25 inch 40 tracks 160 kb).

Anyhow analyzing the ETV 250 maybe would be interesting for you. The ETV 250 logically consists of two systems on one motherboard, a typewriter with keyboard and daisywheel printer and a word processor with video and floppy controller. They run independently from each other on their own Z80 processors. That is similar to ETV 300/350 with serial connected LCU+ET 110/111/112 typewriter (but ET 112 uses Nec uPD 7807 CPU instead of Z80). But the ETV 250 wordprocessor does not talk over serial line to the typewriter but it has a Z80 PIO to talk with it. Anyhow, maybe they use the same language to talk to each other. From ETV 250 manual I just see that both systems share the same diagnostic utility, the manual just warns to not try some menus on ETV250 but only on ETV300 as these tests would hang up the machine. Good night for now.

By the way, above are liste filenames... On the ETV 240/250/300/350 *.MWP files represent the text documents created by Olitext MWP.
 
Pins on LCU 114 (to use in Et 112/116 with ETV 300/350)
1 GND
2 TXD
3 RXD
4 RTS
5 CTS
6 DSR
7 GND
8 DCD
20 DTR

Max Baud Rate of LCU 114: 4800 Baud

In the ET 109 technical manual it tells for the ETV 109 kit for ETV 300:
- 1200 Baud
- 1 Start Bit
- 7 data bit
- 2 stop bit
- no parity

I photographed some pages about ET ETV connectivity from the follwoing manuals, everything I have found: Et 109, ET 115, ET 112, ET 116 and some generic overviews. You can find it here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/r83om5yxulzkh3d/AAAJs7w8LD7SQYj-t4LsKjRUa?dl=0 (please wait, it is still syncing)
 
Last edited:
Just an Update. I have now an ETV 300 with two floppy drives, but no monitor and no typewriter. The ETV 300 powers up and requests for diskette. And even better, in two weeks I will pickup another ETV 300, with monitor, with ET 121 typewriter with ETV option (interface, additional keyboard keys), serial cable and german system diskette. The ET 121 does not power up, that seems to be the power supply where I have the circuit diagram.
 
Hi, sorry i have a bed & Breakfast and i'm very busy in the season time.
Your ETV300 seems so really good.
I left mine one in a box. i do not know if a day i will try to add a typewriter.
All take a loto of place and also a lot of time to understand how typewriter and the ETV300 could work together.

Thanks for your updates.

Enrico - Pisa - ITALY
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top