Kids these days

From: Ward Donald Griffiths III <gram_at_cnct.com>
Date: Sat Sep 19 17:57:17 1998

Tony Duell wrote:

> > That doesn't always work. luckily, there's one every year pretty nearby.
> > That's where I got my Tandy 1000 with 4 LPT ports (I don't know how they
> > all work, but they do, and I'm not gonna touch 'em). I was planning on
> > using it as the controller, and hooking up printer guts and making it work
> > by sending line feeds and spaces, and things like through BASIC.
>
> Can I recomend that you grab the parallel port FAQ off the web. Those
> printer ports are really 12 output lines and 4 input lines each. You can
> do all sorts of neat stuff with those. Like _directly_ control the
> stepper motors (or use some simple stepper control ICs). Hook up
> switches/sensors. You can do that from BASIC, but I think you have to be
> running MS-DOS and not Windows (cetainly not 95 or NT), since that tends
> to get in the way of direct port access.

He won't have that problem. While I _think_ there might have been a
final member of the Tandy 1000 line with a 386, the usual CPU in a
Tandy 1000 is an 8088 (and my TL/2 has a 286, but only an 8-bit bus).
Windows is _not_ an option except maybe 1.x (2.x with a 286), and it
needs a CGA screen driver (preferably with knowledge of the PC Jr.
video modes). So I think we're safe to assume BASIC under MS-DOS.
-- 
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram_at_cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked me if I had any
firearms with me.  I said "Well, what do you need?"  --  Steven Wright
Received on Sat Sep 19 1998 - 17:57:17 BST

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