I tried with and without a null modem inline. Don't know what Mac uses for device names. I may be able to read this on my Pro-350 which may have networking ability. Not sure
as I am not very familiar with RT-11 which is what is on it.
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New to me Rainbow 100A and VR201
- Thread starter PG31
- Start date
I tried with and without a null modem inline. Don't know what Mac uses for device names. I may be able to read this on my Pro-350 which may have networking ability. Not sure
as I am not very familiar with RT-11 which is what is on it.
exidyboy
Experienced Member
Can you provide more info on this hookup? A photo?
Since Mac have not had series ports in a long time you must be using a USB to serial adapter?
Have installed the drivers?
Does it show up in Network Settings?
Is the serial port an 8 pin mini-DIN or a PC style 9 pin?
What serial terminal program are using?
Thanks
Yes, I tried a USB to 25 pin serial connector. Had to drop down to 9 pin for the null-modem and then backCan you provide more info on this hookup? A photo?
Since Mac have not had series ports in a long time you must be using a USB to serial adapter?
Have installed the drivers?
Does it show up in Network Settings?
Is the serial port an 8 pin mini-DIN or a PC style 9 pin?
What serial terminal program are using?
Thanks
with a gender bender to be able to connect to the connector on the Rainbow. I bought this USB to serial long
ago and have never used it. I really didn't expect it to work. I wish I had an older PC with 25 or 9 pin serial.
But I no longer do since moving several times and downsizing many times. It would be easier to mail the
diskette to someone with the ability to read and transfer the data to another machine.
Never had to install drivers on the Mac and who knows what drivers Windows would expect to need. All I
can say it some "printer" type device shows up on USB ports on Windows when I plugged it in and disappeared
when I unplugged it.
I thought my DEC Professional-350 might be able to read the disk but it missing some essential file to read
a DOS diskette. I have no other machines with a RX50. Well I have a Decmate II but it's not working at this time.
I would hope so.
exidyboy
Experienced Member
OK. That's some good information. If it's some random ancient adapter and not specific to a Mac there may be no support in the OS for it. If there was you support would see it in About this Mac/USB and you would be able to select that serial port in a terminal program like the venerable ZTerm, GoSerial or whatever the kids are using these days ;-)
If you think in the future you might want to connect your DEC's to your Mac then I would recommend getting a USB to serial adapter that uses the FTDI chipset - they are more expensive but 'just work' on both Mac and PC.
I appreciate your ongoing efforts!
bqt
Veteran Member
Using a Pro with P/OS, I would recommend you try to locate TPC, which (if I remember right) can also dump diskettes to file.
TPC is a DECUS program used primarily to copy tapes. It should be available from any number of places where DECUS software can be found, and it should just compile on P/OS as well, assuming you have the development tools installed.
I did install a Mac program called Serial but upon running no serial ports were shown that could be opened. So from this I don't think
the Mac saw what it expected. I have no 1.2Mb floppy disk drives. Wish I did, but would need a system with motherboard to support.
I was not able to find any PCI cards to offer floppy support.
bqt
Veteran Member
My Pro has RT-11 installed, not P/OS. And on trying to issue a copy the /DOS parameter gives an error of FILEX missing.
I have no idea of where I'd get that or how I would get it installed to the Pro if I did. Kind of the opposite problem as
to which I am trying to solve.
Ah. Well then, even if you did have FILEX, it wouldn't help you. /DOS under RT-11 does not mean MS-DOS like file system, but DOS-11, which was a predecessor to RT-11 (sortof). The filesystem is nothing like what you'd see on a Rainbow.
I don't know if there is any tool under RT-11 to just make a block for block copy of a diskette, but there might be. But someone else would need to answer that. I'm not that familiar with RT-11.
exidyboy
Experienced Member
If you do want to add RS232 to either your Mac or PC at some point this is an example of the adapter I would recommend.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/18
It seems like it might come in handy for someone with a healthy collection of older machines.
I have dumped EPROM's from Sorcerers just by displaying the contents of memory but redirected out the serial port to my Mac laptop.
A little work in a column-oriented text editor to clean up the ASCII text file and some command line magic and you have a binary file.
Of course KERMIT, zmodem etc are more sophisticated ways to do it.
Thanks for the link. I now see why my cable did not work. It is a USB printer cable. And is why I saw on my Windows laptop it
showed up as a printer device. I will most likely order this other cable. For current and future use.
I have ordered this cable and when it arrives I will try to transfer the file from the Rainbow to my Mac.
Cable suggested by exidyboy arrived today. It is seen on my Mac so that is good. I don't know enough about Rainbows to
properly set the Com1 port setting. I got into SetPort but don't know what key is the Exit key. Rainbows are pretty much
new to me being a pdp-8 and pdp-11 guy. Also for a file transfer isn't some type of software need to run on the Rainbow
for something like Kermit to work? Any help is appreciated. But I suppose this is forward progress although very slow.
properly set the Com1 port setting. I got into SetPort but don't know what key is the Exit key. Rainbows are pretty much
new to me being a pdp-8 and pdp-11 guy. Also for a file transfer isn't some type of software need to run on the Rainbow
for something like Kermit to work? Any help is appreciated. But I suppose this is forward progress although very slow.
According to the FAQ here, there is no disk access using the builtin terminal.
http://www.classiccmp.org/rainbow/files/rainbow.faq
http://www.classiccmp.org/rainbow/files/rainbow.faq
exidyboy
Experienced Member
Zterm supports Kermit https://www.dalverson.com/zterm/ but does MS-DOS have a way to simply dump the contents of memory to the screen which is a function supported on many older microcomputers in their Power on Monitor.
If so then you could just redirect that output to the Rainbow's serial port?
You could also consider using the CP/M side but I am not sure that would expose all the ROM's in the memory map?
Well, the file is binary currently. So that in itself can cause issues during a file transfer. I have no idea how to run CP/M from
this machine or if I even can. I will continue to try other options.