Toastie

I am always a bit confused with the dates of release of TC Logo hard- and software. Brickshelf doesn't list e.g. 9771 and 9750 at all; toysperiod's inventory lists 1090's (Technic Control I, which is a building expansion set to be operated with 9750, the control box) as well as other TC Logo boxes with a release date of 1986. Then I have an original brochure here (in German "The LEGO Educational Program - Technic/Informatics - 1986/1987"), which lists the entire TC Logo program including spare parts etc. along with 9750. Interestingly, 9771 (PC interface card) is not mentioned at all, nor is 9767 (Apple interface card), just an interface cable for connecting 9750 directly to a Commodore C64 or C128 - with a release date of 1987 in Germany. And finally toysperiod lists the release date of 9771 as well as 9767 is 1989. Could it be that the conflicting dates result from the different release dates of the interface cables/cards? 9750 - and thus "TC Logo" - must have been released in 1986 (or even earlier) isn't it? Just to get all in the clear for my favorite LEGO theme :) Best regards, Thorsten

3 mm diameter is so LED. Why don't you want to switch? Voltage? No space for resistors? Color? Brightness? Best, Thorsten

If that very nice "thing" is not a powerful winner pod racer - what possibly could it be? Best, Thorsten

From my heart: Congratulations. It must be a very special and personal anniversary. What do I know, but your posts here on EB always touched me. Hopefully I can celebrate that six decades event in two years . LEGO themes ... When I was young, it was bricks (from small sets). No funds available further on until the 1990's. With the appearance of the RCX, my dreams came true. And till then, it is programmable/electronic stuff, TLG ever made. Not so much (but also :D) the modern BLE stuff, much more so what I missed back then. So it is mostly Technic/Dacta/Mindstorms/PUp. And as I wanted to become a train conductor when I was young: LEGO trains. Best wishes, Thorsten

Very nice review (as usual ) - and product, I must say! So, how many Euro pounds are there in pound of Euros? Thanks for the review and best regards, Thorsten

I agree - provided that making superb 3D ABS printed pieces be a "target" at all. Mo(u)lding gets ever cheaper these days - so I believe molding will simply be the way to go for the remainder of ABS brick (and such pieces) lifetime. 3D printing is happening in another world, i.e., metal and such materials. ABS is - as of now - better molded for high-end appearance. This technology is mature. We'll see whether there is a market for ABS pieces of highest quality needed to be 3D printed. Would be good for individuals, but maybe not for mass production - who knows. Best, Thorsten

Oh my, when I was 11 years old, I was into the LEGO space theme :D - brick build that is. These very small sets, on the right ... Thanks again, Alex! It really make(s) my day(s)! Best regards, Thorsten

Hi Alex, finally - I believe I got this. Thank you so much for taking the pain and writing this up! It is a very steep learning curve for me. And your reasoning about TLG >not< using the parallel port makes absolutely sense! I wonder what TLG was charging back in the days for the ISA card I am looking forward to what happens next ... Thanks again, I truly enjoy all this. Best wishes, Thorsten

Wow - how cool is this. And yes, the olden days were better (for nerds like me of course). I looked (all last night) around - there are USB2GPIO boards (well, e.g. all the FT232R based boards in bitbang mode http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Documents/AppNotes/AN_232R-01_Bit_Bang_Mode_Available_For_FT232R_and_Ft245R.pdf) but I simply can't imagine how to get the IN/OUT "ISA bus signals" regardless of address from DOSBox-X bidirectionally to the USB port into the FT board without telling DOSBox-X that is the parallel port I want to use. I was entertaining the idea of trying a USB2parallel adapter. However, I believe I saw a comment somewhere (lost track in the 20+ browser tabs I had open :D ) that bidirectional USB2parallel ports don't work with DOSBox-X ... but others said they do. I don't have one, otherwise I would have tried. It needs to show up as parallel port or at least as IEE1284 device in device manager, which apparently some of these adapters do. Then I'd point DOSBox-X in the config file to that adapter: [parallel] # parallel1: parallel1-9 -- set type of device connected to the parallel (LPT) port. # Can be: # reallpt (direct parallel port passthrough), # file (records data to a file or passes it to a device), # printer (virtual dot-matrix printer, see [printer] section) And the use your modified TCLOGO version. Do you think that could work? Well, I shall bring out my Toshiba Satellite 4090 - that one features a parallel port Which makes me wonder ... it all works flawlessly with the parallel port. Back in the days, virtually all PCs had parallel ports - at least most of them, I believe? So had TLG used the 0x378/9 addresses in TCLOGO, made a custom parallel cable with the addition of 1 resistor and 1 transistor - 9771 (PC) as well as 9767 (Apple) would have become obsolete, right? I am super excited about all this!!! Best wishes, Thorsten

Hi Alex, CONGRATULATIONS!!! This is so cool - I shall try all this early next week!!! Oh man, what a blast. So you are running this on middle-aged PCs/Laptops with parallel port, right? And under DOS, correct? All the DOSBox-X things you did were for debugging and testing, right? There is another thing: I have never looked into the PWM mode, as I did not see that happening on the 9771 PC ISA card - does the ISA bus drive the PWM? I.e., is there a swift change in the output data lines on the ISA bus for PWM? Very interesting! I don't understand how PWM works using 9771 (or the parallel port - 9771 is actually a super cheap parallel port. This is what IBM said about their parallel port (which is residing in my XT, so I can try your modified TCLOGO on that machine as well!!! So cool). Need to check all this out!!! Oh, that was it then - I guess I have to migrate as well! Thanks for the tip @2GodBDGlory and for that "all files" bit, Alex. So much fun here!!! Will be back soon. Best wishes, Thorsten

@Coder Shah This is so incredibly valuable - I am in awe. You know, this makes all the difference: Of course time goes by. Of course, new, powerful and ever more powerful systems are developed. There is a difference, though: Back then, it was exciting. A thrill. New. Motivating, provided folks were there who a) knew what they were doing (as in teachers) and b) shared their enthusiasm. Everything said/shown in the video, applies today as well. Essentially - in principle - nothing has changed. I just have sometimes the feeling, we are still at ... line followers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that; new folks coming in, line followers are new. You know, exactly that happens to me, when we go up north in Germany, to the place I was born - and went to school. This place has "physically" not changed that much (it is a high school, founded in the 1850's) - and you can just walk in there; northern Germany is a bit remote. It just makes me shiver when walking through the hallways - in an absolutely positive sense. I had a very good time there - because of the teachers and the fellows around, truly appreciating what was "provided" to us. Which does not mean we were lovely students. No way. Wanting to burn down a place and loving it at the same time, is one of the many challenges, a not grown-up individual has to face. Thank you very much (again) for sharing ... ... and all the very best, Thorsten

Good call - I guess I'll take that route ... Thanks a lot, Thorsten

Alex, thank you very much for the recap (!) - I myself get sometimes lost, when thinking about why and how to and so on! And you are right: This is meant to be for future searches - far in the future - so eventually it should go on the WebArchive/WayBack Machine, I believe. There is one more thing that gives me headaches: Let's say, outputs work through the serial port. That seems to be in reach. What seems to be more difficult, though, is to (continuously) monitor the inputs, as TCLOGO does with "listento <port>", right? With such a (dumb) ISA card as 7991, you simply have to look at the content of the 8-bit data bus, when address + IOR + AEN are set. I thus believe you would have to catch the IOR (AEN) as well, and use that as a "trigger" so that e.g. an Arduino puts the 8-bits out the serial port, which has to finds it way into the PC ... I may be totally wrong though. Best, Thorsten

Hi Alex, with regard to the file size for images: You need to simply link from an image hosting service such as flickr or the like. I am using BrickShelf, but that is a) vintage and b) does not accept any new accounts anymore since long. However, when I copy a link to an image on BrickShelf into a post here on EB, it thinks a second and then the image pops up. Max. image size is 1000 x something; as far as I am experiencing, the EB software automatically scales an image to <=1024 x something. When you double-click on the image, you can scale it further down. Well, that is what I do ;) Would love to see a bit more on that disassembled code! Back in the days, I was the nerd, who always got games from my fellow chemistry students for the ZX Spectrum - which were copy protected. As my brain has a failure with regard to gaming (that section seems to be replaced with either simply air - or with cells that find it cool to tinker with machine code protecting copying a game ...), it was my task to figure out the protection by disassembling files. That was rather simple in most cases, nothing compared to what you are trying. I also thought that a command line switch for TCLOGO is not really necessary: In the example BASIC program in the 9771 user instructions booklet, page 76, what they do is P=925 OUT P,21 IF (INP(P) AND 63) = 21 THEN OUT P,0 ELSE ERC=4 So they just write bin10101 (dec 21) to the address of the 9771 card, then read back the (latched) status of the 8 bits of 9771, mask the upper three bits in case something is e.g. on the 2 input lines already, and check for the result, which should of course yield dec 21. If not, the error code 4 is further evaluated later as "no card present". Now all you have to do is running this code for P=925 and then 926 (or wherever address lets say a home brew card is sitting on) and then you know whether there is a card or not. The user would not have to deal with this at all. In other documents of the TC1 literature, it is mentioned that 925 and 926 are hardware selectable, in case you want to run two 9750's off from two 9771 cards. Software wise, it is straight forward to figure out the configuration of the computer: None, one, or two, depending on the hardware setting only. At least, I guess this could be the case. Best, Thorsten

Hi Alex, that is weird. I just tried it last night: No problems whatsoever, TCLOGO just sends any I/O commands (like "talkto "A) into nowhere of course; other than that it works fine: However, I am using DOSBox-X (https://dosbox-x.com/), the later 2022 version that is, not DOSBox. Just saw a minute ago that there is a new version that I will install right away. There are so many options using the ports in DOSBox-X - I simply haven't looked into details yet. QBasic1.1 and QuickBasic4.5 run flawlessly in DOSBox-X, including the serial port mapping DOS COMportX = WindowsCOMportY, USB2Serial adapters are fine. Note that the adapter has to be plugged in >before< DOSBox-X starts - it won't be recognized at all when you plug it in when DOSBox-X already runs. Also, you need to tell DOSBox-X in the config file, which COM port your adapter is providing: serial1 = directserial realport:COM8 This then becomes COM1 in QBasic. If you want my QBasic program and/or the Arduino sketch, please let me know. The QBasic program runs on my IBM XT with either 9771 or the serial port + Nano attached to 9750. Here's a screenshot: You can either turn on/off the individual outputs (T), or use "press and hold" (P) for individual outputs or use motor commands like "AFBRCS" for motor A forward, B reverse, C stop (in any order); CFASAS will simply run motor C forward and A stops. "BS" ;) will not any harm, but just stops motor B with the others unaffected. The motor commands are going out as one byte to the Arduino, and that one selects all the outputs to 8750 in parallel as said. This way, motors turn on/off at the exact same time without any lag. In each loop of the QBasic program scanning the keyboard, the inputs of 9750 are read as well. The COM modes are ISA (9771), SERial, and SIMulation, the latter to try out things :D. Pressíng "X" just iterates through these three. Pressing spacebar tries to make contact ... The program runs without modifications on the XT and Win11 laptop, so it should run under Win98 and the like as well. On the XT, both modes initialize correctly, when having 9771 installed and a serial card + Arduino. On my laptop, only serial and sim modes work (of course). Best wishes, Thorsten

Hi Alex, well, I guess so. What I am doing on the Arduino side is totally simple; it depends a bit on the board type. I used a Uno R3 to test the waters. Then migrated to a Nano (all clones), as this board still has enough I/O ports to solder to. Instead of using the digital pin in/out declarations, I am using port manipulation; first define the input/output ports of the available bits of the 8-bit wide ports: DDRD = DDRD | B11111100; // This is safe: It sets pins 2 to 7 as outputs // without changing the mode of pins 0 & 1 // pins XXX21098 // Ports 5-7 (pins 13-15) not usable on Nano // port B XX543210 // DDRB = B00001100; // Ports B0/B1 and B3-B7 = inputs (B5-7 not usable) And then something like: PORTD = FromQB << 2; which writes 6 bits in parallel to the output pins. Input works alike. The protocol is straight forward: When a (serial) byte is received from the host computer and that one is <= B00111111 (0x3F), the Arduino copies that as output change to register D. When a serial byte received is > 0x3F, the Arduino treats that as host read request and reads port D (output) and B (input), assembles a byte that is 1:1 with what 9771 does, and sends this one byte out the serial port (Port B is also configured to have two outputs driving the input status LEDs on the front panel). Ha! That was a BlueBricks 6x8 tile. However: TLG does not make what I need, so out with the powertools :D I find it quite versatile to build electronics used for LEGO stuff using LEGO bricks and plates - and as PCBs don't follow the stud rules, who is gonna be "made to fit"? True. But there is a caveat. I initially thought, an Arduino hooked up via its USB port to a host computer may act like a COM port. It does not: DOSBox-X says that there is no serial port available. Device manager is also not listing a COM port but rather the USB chip on the Arduino. When you plug in a Serial2TTL or USB2TTL adapter into the USB port, it is listed as COM port in device manager. And DOSBox-X recognizes it readily as such. Main difference is: USB2TTL adapters work for computers with USB port; when using a Serial2TTL converter attached to the Arduino, all computers can talk to the Aduino, provided they have a serial or USB port (the latter then needs a USB2Serial adapter. That's all. With a USB2TTL adapter, the Arduino can be powered from the USB 5V/GND lines. This is not possible with the Serial2TTL adapter. So it all depends, I guess. Summary: 1 byte transferred to the Arduino = parallel change of all outputs; 1 byte read request to the Arduino = response of 1 byte with the status of all ports (6 out, 2 in). Best wishes, Thorsten

Hi Alex, thank you for your support on this thread :D it really is just a container for what is already (scrambled all over the place) out there. Just to run into the right direction (as not in: OK, we are blasting off, tell us later to what location), from the quote above I take it that you want to attach some custom hardware (latches etc., the 9771 logic) >directly< to the PCMCIA slot of a laptop or the like, correct? And you do want to run the TC1 software (TC Logo) to operate 9750 (connected to your custom hardware) from that laptop, correct? And c) that laptop is a DOS machine that can natively run TC Logo, correct? Or would it be OK to run TC Logo on a "modern" laptop within a DOS emulator, such as DOSBox-X? The latter provides some flexibility with regard to interfacing with the outside world (e.g. serial and parallel ports, as per configuration) but I have no clue what it does when intercepting in/out commands. What I am using is DOSBox-X; QBasic works flawlessly within that environment. I am using the serial port COM1, which is mapped by DOSBox-X to a real COM port (USB2Serial adapter) to communicate with the Arduino and that talks bidirectionally to 9750: DEFSNG A-Z SUB WriteOutputPort SELECT CASE ComMode CASE ComISA OUT IOAddress, IOStatus CASE ComSerial PRINT #1, CHR$(IOStatus); '";" required, otherwise cr is sent! CASE ComSim 'do nothing END SELECT END SUB INPUT$(1,1) is then reading the Arduino reply. On the IBM, I am using direct 9771 card access via QBasic's OUT / IN However, this is not compatible with TCLogo, of course. But maybe DOSBox-X can capture OUT / IN commands from the CPU? I'll have to check ... All the best, Thorsten

Update: Made a "9750 Arduino Box", that allows you to run 9750 off from any modern computer - and any ancient machine with a serial port. No need to have a 9771 ISA card ... For "modern" laptop type computers, a USB to serial adapter is needed. A USB to TTL adapter will work as well, but let's focus on "generally applicable" For "ancient" computers, any serial port will do. Here is the box - will post more on how to use it. Left: Ardunio Nano clone, center on/off switch, right, serial-to-TTL adapter. A little extra: 6+2 LEDs (2 input, 6 output) showing the in/out state of the interface. This is how it folds up in the LEGO brick enclosure. A "modified" BB 6x8 tile used as a faceplate. Arduino attached to faceplate. From top left to bottom right: Serial port of the box, connecting to any computer; parallel port connecting to the 9750 box; USB port for a) powering the box or b) programming the Arduino Nano; switch to allow programming the Nano (position "P") or let any computer control the Nano (serial to parallel data conversion). This thing allows you to operate the Interface 1/A from 1986/7 from any modern computer, e.g., a Win11 64 bit laptop, or from an IBM XT (1983) without the 9771 LEGO ISA card. More to come on programming ... Best, Thorsten

I read the Technic forum a lot - now that it was merged with Mindstorms (phasing out). However, I would even expand that a little more: TrainTech alone has so many threads about the LWP3.0 protocol and associated BLE hardware, i.e. PoweredUp [referred to here frequently (and no so accurately ) as Control+]. So what I learned from the Technic/Mindstorms forum: Insane builds, I'll never comprehend nor manage, just admire Cars and trucks and such are very popular All electronic LEGO devices can be controlled from one modern computer; beginning with TCL all the way to PoweredUp This forum provides an enormous wealth of nicely moderated, top content One clone manufacturer, for whatever reason, does not have to go into the Community Forum There is a Community Forum (which is very nice) Programming in C++, simply as ESP32's running LEGOINO can nicely control PoweredUp devices VB6 is still cool for controlling robots and other things like trains QBasic1.1 is still cool for the same purposes ... and so many more things. I am a PChemist - zero engineering background; love to fix old and not so old stuff, build whatever comes to mind. Wood is my preferred material, after that comes ABS, mostly in the TLG incarnation(s). Best, Thorsten

Hey, why is this here? I thought the community forum is for ... forbidden things. This is about allowed things, isn't it? Love the video. Best, Thorsten

Very nice topic! This has to be carefully tracked and documented - as per the thread title! Best wishes, Thorsten

I absolutely agree. Best wishes, Thorsten

You know, the wood of that shelf is older than dirt me - my father brought the planks home when he was doing reconstruction work on (very) old houses in that (very) small town we lived back then, for unknown purposes, maybe burning them in the stove. When I turned (about) 13 years old, I was allowed to use his tools - along with a Bosch jigsaw ... and made this shelf 47 years ago. It since travelled with the family ... Yeah, the space men ... (small) LEGO sets were part of my younger life. Then there was a little decade +/- few years of disorientation, and then it began all over :) Thanks a lot, Thorsten

This thread started in 2006 ... I like vintage stuff My first set was 323 https://brickset.com/sets/323-1/Train 323 is still around here, and yes, that is me "in" the photograph, pushing the train, obviously because someone said so :) Best, Thorsten

Mine as well! I missed that one, 3 and some months ago! Hmmm - why "e-penis" though? The Urban Dictionary says "https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=e-penis" - so that should be an L-penis, which is enlarged, isn't it? Bloody German here, I even never heard of the e-variety before So @suffocation, thanks for making my day (three+ years after your post, I love vinatge stuff) AND enlarging my - uhm - vocabulary. All the best Thorsten