LEGO Interface A (9750/9771) – LEGO Technic Control 1 (TC1) reference/ideas thread

[amine]

There are so many connectors behind that it was impossible for me to figure out which one to use....

[Toastie]

6 hours ago, evank said:

1996? You mean 1986.

Sorry, of course 1986 ... it is all sooo long ago, what's a decade more or less 

Best
Thorsten

[Toastie]

2 hours ago, amine said:

There are so many connectors behind that it was impossible for me to figure out which one to use....

Well, here you go: LEGO Lines for Compis manual, page 3:

1. Turn off the power to the computer.
2. Connect the round connector of the connection cable to the J5 socket on the back of the Compis.
3. Connect the square connector of the cable to the interface.
4. Connect the power supply to the interface.
5. Connect the power supply to the 220 V mains.
6. Turn on the computer.

Here's the drawing below that table (shown is just the Compis unit, not the floppy drive, J5 has 6 pins, it is a DIN type socket as used in the TI99/4A (EU), C64 (floppy cable) etc.:

Best
Thorsten

[amine]

30 minutes ago, Toastie said:

Well, here you go: LEGO Lines for Compis manual, page 3:

1. Turn off the power to the computer.
2. Connect the round connector of the connection cable to the J5 socket on the back of the Compis.
3. Connect the square connector of the cable to the interface.
4. Connect the power supply to the interface.
5. Connect the power supply to the 220 V mains.
6. Turn on the computer.

Here's the drawing below that table (shown is just the Compis unit, not the floppy drive, J5 has 6 pins, it is a DIN type socket as used in the TI99/4A (EU), C64 (floppy cable) etc.:

Best
Thorsten

Thanks I can see that plug now !!!

The interface A side is not a simple connector.....Might be some kind of serial to parallel convertor. You can ask the owner to try to take a Picture inside of it.

 

Edited July 1 by amine

[Toastie]

39 minutes ago, amine said:

ou can ask the owner to try to take a Picture inside of it.

Oh - for sure! I did not know that there is such a system in operation! Do you mind sending me contact data of the owner? And where she or he lives?

All the best,
Thorsten

[amine]

15 minutes ago, Toastie said:

Oh - for sure! I did not know that there is such a system in operation! Do you mind sending me contact data of the owner? And where she or he lives?

All the best,
Thorsten

But that's  a picture from the same bundle that came with the lego lines disks. Same source. The owner of the disks has that cable also.

 

[Toastie]

1 hour ago, amine said:

The owner of the disks has that cable also.

You mean Paul from Sweden?

I simply lost track what software came from which place or person: Paul has the two LEGO Lines 5.25" Compis floppies (and now he has 3 backup sets that I made as well). He has also the cable? If so, then yes, I shall ask him!!!

Best
Thorsten

[evank]

1 hour ago, Toastie said:

You mean Paul from Sweden?

I simply lost track what software came from which place or person: Paul has the two LEGO Lines 5.25" Compis floppies (and now he has 3 backup sets that I made as well). He has also the cable? If so, then yes, I shall ask him!!!

Best
Thorsten

Please copy me on that email. I'd like to see the cable in detail, part number, etc.

[Toastie]

6 hours ago, evank said:

Please copy me on that email. I'd like to see the cable in detail, part number, etc.

Of course I'll do so! I sent my message (turned out to be a bit long ^^) a minute ago - when I get any reply, I shall copy you.

Well, just imagine it IS some sort of "serial to parallel converter" (I am almost convinced) - we then have the equivalent of the current Arduino (etc.) based bit bangers used 40 years ago!

Yeah, I know: Was all common sense back then ... toady we just use $2 Arduino clones capable of navigating people to the moon and safely return them to Earth for such purposes  

Best
Thorsten

[amine]

here is an artical on the usage of comal for lego programming on the C64 and a demonstration of the plotter.

https://www.e-pages.dk/audiomedia/1138452955/

 

 

Edited July 2 by amine

[amine]

Here is the first part  of the logowriter activity cards, complete scan is coming soon.

it is of course fully compatible with interface A using the robotics extension.

https://archive.org/details/logo-writer-activity-cards-part-1

 

 

Edited July 2 by amine

[Toastie]

Dear all,

I am still thinking about that Compis "cable" - and remotely remembered from my active TTL days these shift registers. They are mostly 8 bit (what a surprise ), but who cares, two bits can just go "unused"). Looking at the truth tables of 74LS595/6 (the latter is open collector, so I'd prefer the 595 with tri-state simply disabled), it could be really straight forward:

I'd use an independent internal clock in the plug enclosure to Interface A. Then I'd use port 0 of the 8255 on J5 for controlling the serial inputs of the 74LS595 and port 1 on J5 for the actual serial data. The 74LS595 is an 8-bit shift register with D-latches for each register. In other words, serial data coming in are shifted through the register and then latched-in, as proposed above. As all is controlled by one 8255 port, no synching problems should arise.

The 74LS595 is from 1981  and still available. The modern HC version (from 1982 :) costs 30 cents ...

Best
Thorsten   

[alexGS]

29 minutes ago, Toastie said:

Dear all,

I am still thinking about that Compis "cable" - and remotely remembered from my active TTL days these shift registers. They are mostly 8 bit (what a surprise ), but who cares, two bits can just go "unused"). Looking at the truth tables of 74LS595/6 (the latter is open collector, so I'd prefer the 595 with tri-state simply disabled), it could be really straight forward:

I'd use an independent internal clock in the plug enclosure to Interface A. Then I'd use port 0 of the 8255 on J5 for controlling the serial inputs of the 74LS595 and port 1 on J5 for the actual serial data. The 74LS595 is an 8-bit shift register with D-latches for each register. In other words, serial data coming in are shifted through the register and then latched-in, as proposed above. As all is controlled by one 8255 port, no synching problems should arise.

The 74LS595 is from 1981  and still available. The modern HC version (from 1982 :) costs 30 cents ...

Best
Thorsten   

Sorry for not being able to respond when you tagged me - simply too busy here this week - but I think you’re absolutely going in the right direction, considering the 9771 PC card also uses 74LS bit-latching logic. I think it’s time for us to start new threads perhaps, for these different configurations - it’s a lot to try and keep up with 😁 It made me laugh out loud when you implied a 24-hour timeframe for responses, I feel like I’m operating on more of a three-month timeframe (that’s when I hope to get my multi-9771 made). But I just wanted to let you know that I’m excited by these developments and always interested to see what you’re doing with them ☺️ cheers

Edited July 2 by alexGS

[evank]

5 hours ago, alexGS said:

I feel like I’m operating on more of a three-month timeframe (that’s when I hope to get my multi-9771 made)

I forgot about this!

I never did buy one of those mini-PC things. I did buy a drone. :)

[amine]

Does anyone knows if Logowriter for C64 has been archived somewhere ? There are versions of Logo for C64 online but I am not sure if they are similar.

 

I found a video on YouTube that shows something similar to the TC Controller ???

https://youtu.be/b87zFxodPY0?is=Wc_c6cdpewUKzS6W

 

 

Edited July 3 by amine

[evank]

8 hours ago, amine said:

There are versions of Logo for C64

LOGO on a C-64 was the first thing I ever did on a computer!

I was 10 in 1984. One day, without any notice or fanfare, they rolled an A/V cart into our classroom and taught us how to program LOGO's turtle graphics on a Commodore 64 . That was the extent of the lesson. But it was AWESOME from my perspective. We also tinkered when we should've been doing something else, in the process discovering the alternate screen colors and alternate key symbols.

The next year, I switched to another school and signed up for an elective programming class, where we learned BASIC in a lab room full of Apple ][+ and //e systems.

My parents then bought a //e Platinum for our house.

I told my mother, "I wish there was a way to connect the Apple // to my Legos!" --- I remember that moment with 100% clarity. (Actually I remember all of this stuff like it happened today.)

We certainly didn't know there WAS a way, it has JUST happened, and we had no access to this.

Thirty years later, in 2016, I turned 42. I was home that summer recovering from bone tumor surgery. I was beyond miserable, until my friend Ben suggested tinkering with "that 1980s Lego computer interface" ..... WHAT!!??

Turns out he had a sealed/new-in-box Lego 9700, 9750, 9767.

That turned my frown upside-down!

Since then I became an Interface A junkie, switched to a great new career in academia, bought a house, got married, and joined Eurobricks. :)

 

[amine]

19 hours ago, evank said:

LOGO on a C-64 was the first thing I ever did on a computer!

I was 10 in 1984. One day, without any notice or fanfare, they rolled an A/V cart into our classroom and taught us how to program LOGO's turtle graphics on a Commodore 64 . That was the extent of the lesson. But it was AWESOME from my perspective. We also tinkered when we should've been doing something else, in the process discovering the alternate screen colors and alternate key symbols.

The next year, I switched to another school and signed up for an elective programming class, where we learned BASIC in a lab room full of Apple ][+ and //e systems.

My parents then bought a //e Platinum for our house.

I told my mother, "I wish there was a way to connect the Apple // to my Legos!" --- I remember that moment with 100% clarity. (Actually I remember all of this stuff like it happened today.)

We certainly didn't know there WAS a way, it has JUST happened, and we had no access to this.

Thirty years later, in 2016, I turned 42. I was home that summer recovering from bone tumor surgery. I was beyond miserable, until my friend Ben suggested tinkering with "that 1980s Lego computer interface" ..... WHAT!!??

Turns out he had a sealed/new-in-box Lego 9700, 9750, 9767.

That turned my frown upside-down!

Since then I became an Interface A junkie, switched to a great new career in academia, bought a house, got married, and joined Eurobricks. :)

 

 

Don't know if that disk is of any importance to us.

We are missing the English extension pack for the BBC micro.

 

 

It seems those programs were part of the package....

https://www.flaxcottage.com/Educational/Default.asp

 

It is all part of a disk 

https://www.flaxcottage.com/Educational/software/LEGO/Data/Data_Download.zip

The height and vernier programs are part of the 1092 set .

 

Edited July 4 by amine

[amine]

Breaking news we already have the 9760 programs for the BBC micro without us knowing it !!!!!  

On the left is the Data programs for BBC and on the right is the 9760 disk for C64. The C64 use comal for programming where as the BBC use basic !!!

https://www.dubbekarl.dk/lego-pdf/9760-v1.pdf

on page 146 of the manual you will find the same data software !!!

 

Link to the 9760 BBC software 

https://www.flaxcottage.com/Educational/software/LEGO/Data/Data_Download.zip

Posted request  for the manual on stardot

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=33242

Edited July 4 by amine

[Toastie]

Oh my ... crazy!

As @alexGS said, we need more organization here. I have no clue how to do that. We can bomb this forum with several new threads, however, some will quickly drown into the "cars and gear-shift-box" graveyard, I fear. We keep up his thread, because we put everything related to Interface A in here, and that is totally cool.

On the other hand, we could have a pinned topic for the "LEGO interest Group of the enlightened 1980's diehards Dacta Freaks" or LiG-DaF's.

I have no clue how to organize such a pinned topic, as it requires subtopics, and posting discipline . Subtopics could be organized into hardware=computers, and software=all the varieties.

May that work here? I shall ask around if you agree.

All the best
Thorsten

Edited July 4 by Toastie

[evank]

I like the ongoing Interface A megathread. I vote for not changing anything.

Update: I might be a hypocrite and make a new thread next week, because I anticipate having something unique to announce!

Edited July 5 by evank

[alexGS]

22 hours ago, evank said:

I like the ongoing Interface A megathread. I vote for not changing anything.

Update: I might be a hypocrite and make a new thread next week, because I anticipate having something unique to announce!

Can you make the Facebook 9750 Interface A group private yet? :) Since you’ve done it for your Square Pistons FB group, I’m hoping you might do it for the other, and then we can post this stuff there in separate threads with photos and video etc. and discussion as we try it out.

Edited July 5 by alexGS

[evank]

@alexGS what does the group being public or private have to do with posting there?

I made the Square Pistons group private because it got enough members to attract spam and low-quality posts. Whereas the Interface A group is only 50 people and barely anyone posts there beside me ... I've been thinking about turning it off.

[evank]

@Toastie I rescind my first response. My new opinion is that we should ask the EB admin (I don't know who they are) to create a subforum called Vintage Technic, defined as anything pre-Mindstorms. Then we can all post away without the modern cars and stuff.

[Toastie]

20 hours ago, evank said:

Then we can all post away without the modern cars and stuff.

That was my primary motivation. It appears as if cars (with or without gear boxes ) become sort of ... known territory, nevertheless, this forum is mostly about ... cars and gearboxes. Which is totally fine with me! It is what it is. Some don't appreciate just another car in the annual Technic line-up, but so many do post about cars of the annual line-up - to the extent of a frenzy. So be it. 

The moment Mindstorms was losing its own forum, I thought: Oh my, the GBCs and "machines" will drown the Mindstorms posts. Well, not true. It was - the cars ;) And of course: TLG pulling the Mindstorms plug. There is no (current) storm of the minds, there is something else. We'll see, what "sort of" smart bricks can do with regard to the storm in our minds.

However, if we are allowed to "dissolve" into a Technic subforum, we need to pay close attention, when we post: Tagging people (I am hardly counting to ten) without trying to be obnoxious, paying close attention to what is going on in that subforum. So far, we have no problems in keeping this "Interface A" thread afloat in the main Technic forum - for the exact same reasons.

But there is more, there always is: @Bliss's LEGO Blockly (I love to control Interface A/B/CM/RCX/PF/VLL and more with it, using every time the exact same language, heck, I am trying to get behind the Compis logic using his software!), @Mr Hobbles' approach to so many legacy and modern LEGO electronics, @maehw's Lines program (and so much more, saw some of your videos!), @BrickTronic's knowledge, @amine's unbelievable hunting skills, @alexGS knowledge about vintage educational hard- and software, as well as his electronics skills, and many others not tagged, I can't recall as of writing; I am sorry!!!

If you all agree, that this may be a viable route (the subforum approach), then yes, I shall ask around. @aFrInaTi0n is my first guess - if he says "no", then we just continue bombing the main Technic forum with really ancient stuff, "nobody" is interested in. Would work for me as well. Reply of course: Yeah, boomer.

Well, lets recall Ghostbusters, Dr. Pete Venkman:

"If I'm wrong nothing happens, we go to jail, peacefully, quietly, we'll enjoy it. But if I'm right, and we can stop this thing - Lennie - you will save the lives of millions of registered voters."

Here is to feeling good

Best
Thorsten 

 

Edited July 6 by Toastie

[alexGS]

22 hours ago, evank said:

@alexGS what does the group being public or private have to do with posting there?

I made the Square Pistons group private because it got enough members to attract spam and low-quality posts. Whereas the Interface A group is only 50 people and barely anyone posts there beside me ... I've been thinking about turning it off.

I think I’ve explained before… when I post in a public group, anyone from my work colleagues, to occasional work acquaintances (tradespeople), to friends, not-so-friends, and family all get shown that post randomly in their feeds. Some will private-message me in confusion. Some will use it as evidence that I wasn’t working on their project at the time. Some will just laugh or post unrelated discussions in that group. I even had a phone call from a friend’s mother (whom I hadn’t seen in 25 years) worried that my identity had been stolen after I posted on a UK group.

A private group avoids all of these embarrassments, and I think you’d get more people sharing things if they knew they weren’t being ‘watched’.

Having said all that, and considering that Facebook is the easier way to upload photos and videos, I’m aware that important contributors here don’t use Facebook. And so, I support your idea of a sub-forum here - that seems a great way to organise things better.

Edited July 6 by alexGS