Alphasmart SDK

[aladds]

This is a bit of a long shot...

But has anyone ever done Alphasmart SmartApplet development?

I can't seem to find anything online about this, bar a few pages on the Renaissance Learning website, which seem to do little more than tell you how to update a few things.

(The waybackmachine doesn't help more more)

I'm wondering if it might be easier to just re-implement the whole thing with an Arduino, considering it's not far off that in terms of hardware specification anyway...

But it would make a really good serial terminal if I can write an applet for it!

 

[Elfen]

Uhm... The AlphaSmart was nothing more than a Wordprocessor/keyboard system for portable story writing for schools and students. Everything on it was on ROM and 64K of RAM. It did have a 6809 CPU.

You can use it as a keyboard on A PC or ADB Mac (with a PS2-USB Adapter you can use it on a G4 and higher Mac!).

Unless you have a way to add to the ROM, there is not much you can do with it. You can write your other programs on it and then port them to your machine.

There is not much you can do with it. I got about 25 of them (The first Gen one with the white case, not the second gen blue ones but they were the same). We used to give them out to students on trips to write their reports live. Then when we returned to school, they would dump the information into their student accounts on a word processor.

The Arduino would be a better option in this as you can program it as needed. The AlphaSmart is stuck with what it has unless you can reverse engineer the ROM and put in a new ROM in its place.

 

[360alaska]

If I'm not mistaken, when I was in middle school, a classmate had cerebral palsy and was issued an alphasmart which ran Palm OS. MAybe a Palm OS SDK might work?  

 

[sstaylor]

Yes, the AlphaSmart Dana used the Palm OS.  The AlphaSmart Neo2 seems to have had the capability of loading new programs, but I've never seen an SDK or further information anywhere.  Anything older than that, I don't know.  Seems like the 2000 and 3000 could have their OS flashed, maybe that could allow program loading too.

Love the AlphaSmarts.  My wife still uses some in her high school classroom for her students to write with.  Kids who can't afford a computer at home regularly ask if they can buy or borrow one to take home for all their classes.

 

[Elfen]

OK, that's the later version AlphaSmart Dana. I thought it was the AlphaSmart Pro, which is just a simple keyboard & wordprocessor.

If its Palm Os, as stated, you can find the Palm OS-SDK online and treat it as a Palm Pilot. Palm OS is fairly easy to program for.

 

[Bunsen]

Do the older ones even have a serial port?  Do any of them?

 

[Bunsen]

ROM and 64K of RAM / 6809 CPU

Interesting ...

 

[Elfen]

Do the older ones even have a serial port?  Do any of them?

Its a Psuedo Serial Port that emulates the ADB Port for Macs and PS2 Port on PCs.

I've tried putting a PS2 to USB Adapter to its PS2 port and it works on USB and on Macs! i plugged into my G5 and the Apple's Set Up Keyboard program popped up! LOL!

It has 64K of RAM, divided up into 8 sections for wordprocessing projects or "files."  When you are done, connect the keyboard cable to it, set up your wordprocessor on the computer end and press the "SEND" button and it will send it at a Speedy 600 BAUD as if you were typing it! There are 3 speed settings - Slow, Medium and Fast. I'm faster than it is on Slow and Medium but on fast, I'm not going to try, I think its pushing the limits of the slow UART is has.

Oh! Almost forgot. The RAM is Non-Volatile so when you turn it off, your work remains, and when the batteries die, it still retain the files. I think it is one of those RAM/FlashRAM hybrids of the 1990s.

 

[aladds]

The AlphaSmart Neo2 seems to have had the capability of loading new programs, but I've never seen an SDK or further information anywhere.  Anything older than that, I don't know.  Seems like the 2000 and 3000 could have their OS flashed, maybe that could allow program loading too.

The 3000 has the same capability. Few apps flashed to the ROM over the serial port. From the 2000 onwards they have a serial port for direct connection to a printer, but you can also use it to quickly up/download files and a few other things. The 3000 and beyond have a USB port instead of ADB, and I believe it's possible to use the USB port for the same

Perhaps the thing to do here is to dissect an updater app and/or log a serial update session.

Interestingly, I can hook my 3000 up to an iPhone or iPad with a camera kit and it works exactly as you'd expect, even thinks it's connected to a Mac!

 

[Gil]

I have a 3000 and a Dana.

The 3000's USB port emulates a standard keyboard, so when connected to a host computer, it appears as such. Always fun to press "Send" and watch the text fly across the screen! There is also an adapter cable for the 3000 that plugs into the USB port and allows it to be connected to an ADB Macintosh or PS/2 PC port for the same functionality. The serial port is nothing more than the standard Macintosh Mini-DIN 8 printer port. I seem to recall the AS3000 had built-in printer "drivers" for LaserJet, DeskJet, DeskWriter, StyleWriter, ImageWriter, as well as a Canon and Epson driver or two.

Years ago I stumbled across a Text-to-Speech device that plugged into the AS3000 printer port. Basically a speaker that read the text aloud. Thought that was pretty cool!

The Dana runs PalmOS. Not sure what version. I know there's a Palm "manager" software for it that runs on OS 9. The Dana may have also had built in Wifi (802.11b obviously). Can't remember.

Always thought AlphaSmarts were fascinating devices. I used one in elementary and middle school due to fine motor difficulties (it is physically painful for me to write).

 

[Bunsen]

Elfen, do you have any links to technical documentation for the model/s you're describing?

 

[Elfen]

I searched the web for hours last night and could not find detailed technical specs. But here is what I found. Sorry if it is not enough.

This guy got it wrong, the 68HC11 is a 6809 variant and not a 68K used on Macs and Sega Genesis. But he does open it up for you to see inside.

The 6811 is similar to the 6510 used in the C64 where you could swap out memory between RAM and ROM, in the AlphaSmart it gives 128K of RAM and ROM memory.

As you can see by the video, there are only about 4 or 5 chips in it and a few more for the LCD Display itself.

IFixIt.com has a few pages on repair on it but no true technical data or parts list:

https://www.ifixit.com/Device/AlphaSmart_Pro

wikipedia, model in question is the Pro:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaSmart#AlphaSmart

 

[Bunsen]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freescale_68HC11

The 68HC11 (6811 or HC11 for short) is an 8-bit microcontroller family descended from the Motorola 6800 microprocessor.
Internally, the HC11 instruction set is upward compatible with the 6800, with the addition of a Y index register.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_6809

The Motorola 6809 is an 8-bit (with some 16-bit features) microprocessor CPU from Motorola / It was a major advance over both its predecessor, the Motorola 6800, and the related MOS Technology 6502. / the 6809 is a derivative of the 6800

So, I wouldn't call a 68HC11 a "6809 variant".  Cousin, maybe.

And neither have much at all to do with the 6510 / 6502.

 

[Bunsen]

Wait a sec, I do notice this:
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_6809
 

A micro-controller version with a slightly modified instruction set, the 6811

Interesting then.

 

[Bunsen]

This seems to be the best hobbyist site around about the 68HC11

http://www.hc11.demon.nl/thrsim11/68hc11/
 

About the Motorola MC 68HC11

The 68HC11 is a powerful 8-bit data, 16-bit address microcontroller from Motorola with an instruction set that is similar to the older 68xx (6801, 6805, 6809) parts. Depending on the variety, the 68HC11 has built-in EEPROM/OTPROM, RAM, digital I/O, timers, A/D converter, PWM generator, and synchronous and asynchronous communications channels (RS232 and SPI).

 

[Gorgonops]

Wait a sec, I do notice this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_6809

Interesting then.

Wikipedia is *basically* wrong on that statement; the 68HC11 is indeed better thought of as a "cousin" or a product of convergent evolution with the 6809 than really a variant. The major difference is the 68HC11 is *almost* completely binary code compatible with the 6800, while the 6809 is *not*. The extensions to the instruction set and registers are about the same but they were implemented by using unused opcodes, which means its instruction set architecture is sort of messy compared to the famously clean 6809's.

Basically you can think of the relationship between the 6800 and the 68HC11 as being akin to that between the Intel 8080 and Zilog's Z-80; the latter is binary compatible to the former but tacks on a lot of extensions. The 6800 vs the 6809 is more along the lines of, well, hate to say it, the 8080 and 8086. Assembly language programs from the former can be brought forward fairly trivially with a cross-assembler but there's no binary compatibility at all. (The difference of course is the 8086 extends all registers to 16 bit, while the 6809 keeps its foot planted firmly enough in the 8-bit world that it doesn't qualify as a "bigger" CPU.)

 

[aladds]

So...

I've hit a stumbling block with my unit, as it's a UK one. The latest UK OS is 1.6, and all the apps I can find seem to need 3.0, which I have the update for, but needs a US AS3k.

If anyone is interested, the AlphaSmart Manager 2.3 (http://support.renlearn.com/techkb/techkb/10497122e.asp note that this is a Carbon App, so works in OS9 (despite being in an OSX only dmg) and OSX, but PPC only) when installed, gives you a folder of SmartApplets, which appear to be binaries in a wrapper which the AlphaSmart Manager understands.

From opening the binaries in Resourcerer, it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility to get one of these disassembled to work out how they operate - and then with any luck the ASM would recognise your modifications and allow you to load it back onto the AS3k.

From opening the AS3k itself, I can say that this particular model uses a Motorolla DragonBall EZ MC68EZ328PU16V, has an AMD AM29LV008B-120EC Flash ROM (8MBit/1MByte), and HY62U8200B RAM (256KByte SRAM). USB is provided by a Philips PDIUSBD11D (I2C), and serial through a Sipex SP3223ECA.

I've taken some pictures of the board, so watch this space.

Edit: 

 

[Bunsen]

Found a schematic for the Alphasmart Pro:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/92471737@N03/8406301108/in/pool-alphasmart

and from there, found an active Alphasmart user's group on flickr.  Searching the discussion for words like programming, smartapplet, sdk, it seems like there are one or two people there who might be able to help you out.

 

[Elfen]

Thanks Bunsen!