Re: Re: Using AX.25 w/older h
  By: Ed Vance to Damon A. Getsman on Thu Feb 26 2015 00:23:00

 EV> Probably there was some software/hardware like Digicom for the Atari,
 EV> Don't know, Digicom afaik was for use with a C=64.

  Oh there were bunches of non-Atari add ons that would give it all sorts of
capabilities.  I just never had the budget to be able to work with them at all,
unfortunately.  I'll totally do it once I get some income that is disposable
here once I get chance, though.

 EV> We all learn a little bit at a time, don't we?

  Indeed.  Just trying to push that curve towards the steeper as much I can
lately.  The age of 40 coming at me is making me value my time a lot more.

 EV> I got the C=64, Floppy Drive and 300 baud Modem to start out with.
 EV> I've seen how slow Tape transfers were and didn't want that, I wanted
 EV> the FDD even though it was very costly back in 1984.

  Yeah.  :)  I was donated my first Atari, a 600XL (with a WHOPPING 16K of
memory), and all it had was the analog tape drive.  God I even had 3 backups of
some of my programs.  That medium was actually volatile enough that I had times
when I still couldn't recover despite 3 backups.  That was horrifying.  Writing
one hundred lines of code back then (which would come close to filling up the
memory) really blew my mind; losing it was a horror.  This was very early 90s,
maybe a little bit in the late 80s, also.  Whenever it was, 180-360k floppies
were the norm, and 1.2m floppies weren't far behind, either.  Most people were
working with 640k of memory by that time, not 16k.  Eight-bit was definitely
quickly becoming a thing of the past, though many still used it.

 EV> I just know pieces and bits, and had help learning what I learned from
 EV> some other Hams who took their time explaining what's what to me.

  Well I certainly do appreciate any of y'all that are taking the time to share
bits of this all with me now.  :)

 DAG>> electronics theory going on behind that? I've been waiting
 EV> This was back in the Mid-1970's when I assembled that stuff.
 EV> I saw the 555 AFSK schematic somewhere, just as I copied the portion
 EV> of the RTTY Reader project in PE Magazine.
 EV> That Reader had maybe eight LED's on the front panel, that scrolled the
 EV> words in the RTTY signal data.
 EV> Can't remember if they were regular 7 Segment LED chips or what.
 EV> Some letters in our alphabet would be hard to configure on a 7 segment
 EV> display chip, I'd think.

  Gotcha.  So more copying than comprehension?  I'm still working on the point
where I can understand the theoretical basis behind some of the electronics,
but it's taking me awhile to understand the nuances of it, despite my math
degree.

 EV> When You get back into doing that High Voltage stuff be very very
 EV> careful and don't let it 'talk' to You.

  Okay, I've got to ask.  I'm having mad scientist visions here with people
falling into trances looking at tesla coil discharges and deciding that the
truth to everything lies within them, thus getting fried by the human bug
zapper.  I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean...  Can you elaborate?  :)

 EV> Those two 10 Turn POTS came with a calibrated dial that could be locked
 EV> to keep it from moving.

  Those 'helipots' sound pretty useful for some stuff that I'm trying to work
on right now, I might have to see if digikey or some other retailer has them
for a decent price.

 EV> The VEC Test Question Pool can be downloaded from http://www.ncvec.org
 EV> if You want to study them.

  I do very much so; synchronet has a door for it, too, but it'd be great to
have something I could put on hardcopy, also.  Thank you for the info!

 EV> Yes, I wrote about the Netronics ASCII/Video board kit earlier.
 EV> It was meant to be a Terminal with RS-232 output.
 EV> I just grabbed my connections a little upstream of the output where it
 EV> was TTL level.
 EV> That's how I was able to connect the AFSK Keyer and Demodulator to
 EV> the Netronics kit.

  Gotcha.  I figured as much, but wasn't totally sure.

 EV> What got me interested was I had read a book called the TV Typewriter
 EV> Cookbook and it interested me because someone could get on RTTY without
 EV> having the noise and buying paper for it.
 EV> I used a cassette recorder to record the receiver audio as I was
 EV> reading what was coming on the screen, so I could play it back to see
 EV> it later on, if I wanted to.

  Awesome.  :)  God I can't wait to be able to get into things.

 EV> Yes, as long as the difference in the Mark and Space frequencies were
 EV> 170 Cycles apart, my configuration worked like "Duck Soup".

  I am floundering to know what this means.

 EV> Hey!, Anyone who know me, knows that I'm ignorant about lots of stuff.
 EV> I learned by asking questions, everybody does, unless they are inventing
 EV> something new that's never been done before.

  Well, we all are, outside of our niches.  It's pushing those boundaries that
makes us more valuable as people, and in some areas, more valuable to the
people in our lives as well.  I try to push the boundaries and test myself
every day, to quote Emilio Estevez in Young Guns.

 EV> Everything I've been talking about pertaining to RTTY has been about
 EV> AUDIO.
 EV> The Digicom stuff I used later when I got the C=64 converted Audio to
 EV> Data on the cassette port, and Data from the cassette port that I typed
 EV> on the C=64 keyboard into Audio.
 EV> -snip-
 EV>> Years later I got a used Hallicrafter SX-42 for my shack.
 EV>> 73 and wish You well with what You choose.
 EV> There are many things that Hams are interested in, I've only done a
 EV> tiny bit if what Hams do.
 EV> But what I do I enjoy, You will enjoy it too, just only put one hand
 EV> in the final amplifier, keep the other one in your pocket.  
 EV> 73

  Gotcha.  Thank you so much for the info dump.  I greatly appreciate it.  :) 
I've got lots of tabs open for things to look at now.  :)
  Best wishes.

  -Damon
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