💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › magazines › MLH › mlh19.txt captured on 2022-06-12 at 13:27:38.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
MiniSport Laptop Hacker - Vol 19. Jan 1994 To discourage pecuniary interests, Copyright (c) 1993 Brian Mork >>> ADMIN Remember, you can get copies on disk of any software or text file I re- fer to (including the MLHacker series) by sending me a disk and SASE. I'll put a variety of other MLHacker related goodies on there, too. Alternately, you may make a direct call to the data number listed below. In this case, use the FILES command, and L)og into the \public\computer directory. MLHacker is starting to show up on some Internet servers. Ask around or you can offer to upload it for me to your nearest host. >>> PARALLEL PORT POTENTIAL The August 1993 (Issue #37) issue of Circuit Cellar INK has a six page article describing how to turn the PC parallel port into a powerful TTL input/output port, even if it's inherently only an output port (prior to the proliferation of PS/2 compatible bidirectional parallel ports). The circuit uses only five chips: 2x 74LS374, 2x 74LS244, and 1x 74LS138. I will eventually build one and report on some fun things to do with it, but in the meantime, I thought I'd give a pointer to the article to oth- ers in the crowd who could use this capability now. >>> 2ND MEGABYTE ADDITIONS Thanks to Griff, Troy, and Jeff. Each has experimented around with the empty sockets in ZL-1s that hold a second megabyte of memory in ZL-2s. Bottom line is that you can add a standard IBM PC SIPP (1Mx9) or a Mac- Intosh type (1Mx8) memory package. If you have SIMMs, you'll have to add some pins, and in some cases, trim the circuit board card to fit in side the Minisport case. In all cases, you'll have to bend the package of memory over sideways after soldering it in. Yea! Anybody have some spare memory they'd like to sell me? The "old fashioned" slow memory would work fine in this computer. >>> PACKET CONVENIENCE UTILITY I bet most of us use our Minisports for packet at one time or another. Here's a utility I recently wrote to fix an annoying problem. The com- puter and the TNC are doing what they're suppose to, but that's not what I wanted! The limited storage of the Minisport's RAM disk prompted me to do this one in assembly language. You may have seen it on the nets as a stand-alone message. As a special addition to MLHacker readers, the source code is included prior to the text of the other message. ; PK232DMP, initiated Jan 94, BjM (Opus-OVH) ; XOR AH,AH MOV AL,1 ; COMx -- put 1,2,3, or 4 here PUSH AX ADD AL,030 ; Convert COM number into ASCII MOV [FILL],AL ; Create output message POP AX SUB AL,1 SHL AL,1 MOV BX,AX ; COM address offset into BX MOV AL,040 MOV ES,AX ; BIOS Data Area Segment MOV AX,ES:[BX]; Snag COM base from DOS table of addresses ADD AL,4 ; Generate BASE+ModemControlRegister MOV DX,AX ; put it into DX IN AL,DX ; Get existing Modem Control Register OR AL,3 ; Set DTR and RTS true, and.. OUT DX,AL ; rewrite to hardware MOV AH,09 ; Select DOS "String->Std Output" function MOV DX,STRING ; DS set by MSDOS prior to entry INT 021 MOV AH,04C ; MSDOS Program Termination INT 021 STRING: DB 'DTR and RTS on COM' FILL: DB ' set true.