Tony Duell wrote:
> > 2. Included with a TRS CoCo 1 I picked up last summer was
> > an adapter plugged into the cass.port. a label "TotalCommunications"
> > on one side and "Telelearning" on the other. Into this was plugged
> > another M/M adapter labelled " RS232 Gender Changer" Was this for
> > hooking up a fdd and/or modem ?
>
> My guess, and it's only a guess is that this is some kind of kludge to
> allow you to CLOAD (and maybe CSAVE) programs to/from an RS232 device. It
> may have been part of one of those classroom 'networks' where the teacher
> loaded a program onto his machine, all the pupils typed CLOAD, the
> teacher typed CSAVE and the program was downloaded onto all the pupils'
> machines.
No, the classroom network system used a straight-through DIN-5 cable
from the teacher's machine and up to 16 (longer) ones for the student
systems. The classroom network system went through two versions, the
first being limited to the 500 baud of the Model One and the second
useable with the Model III and Color Computer at 1500 baud. Used 'em
for years in my RSCC classrooms. The important thing was to watch the
lights on the box that told you that the cassette power switches had
been activated, meaning the students had finished entering the CLOAD
command before typing CSAVE "XYZ", or class would be delayed. (Those
network systems would have worked just fine with early IBM PCs, but I
doubt that it ever happened).
I vaguely recall seeing the names mentioned on this other adapter from
ads somewhere, but no details. I'd count the pins on the connectors,
as the serial bit-banger was a 4-pin DIN. Definitely not a Tandy
product.
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan: How many years must some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd: If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
they'll never be free.
Received on Tue Feb 24 1998 - 20:04:44 GMT