Setting up a PC Trasporter on a IIGS

[micheledipaola]

Awesome possum! Now I can start cross checking stuff.

My color switch card does nothing when connected, so I just threw a few bucks at it and replac d these parts... Let's see.

Bought the same chips with the same intent of replacing them on a (seemingly) non-working ColorSwitch... but then never found the time to do it - let us all know if something changes!

Anyway I guess the new ColorSwitch pcb project could be a place to look at, for finding some answers, even related to the pinout we're all trying to figure out; for instance your question:

Also, does Ground need to get connected to each of the various grounds at the DB15, or is one sufficient? (Pin1+Pin6+Pin13)

have been bugging me for a couple years already as I am scared to fry / mess up something with wrong connections, being a total noob with electronics.

 

[luvwagn]

Bought the same chips with the same intent of replacing them on a (seemingly) non-working ColorSwitch... but then never found the time to do it - let us all know if something changes!

Anyway I guess the new ColorSwitch pcb project could be a place to look at, for finding some answers, even related to the pinout we're all trying to figure out; for instance your question:

have been bugging me for a couple years already as I am scared to fry / mess up something with wrong connections, being a total noob with electronics.

Confirmed. I plugged a IIgs video cable into the back of a IIgs, and then measured pins 1, 6, 13, and the shield, and they all have continuity to each-other, so are all a common ground. I'll wire up my DA15 (?) the same way.

 

[luvwagn]

Unfortunately, even after chip replacement and proper wiring harness, i still get no IIgs video output via the colorswitch.

I'm going to hook up two monitors in parallel and see if i can get PC Transporter signs-of-life or not. Have to figure out how to get software into this machine, which is booting off of an ancient IDE type card (that has a CF card on it now). May have to borrow my son's CFFA3000 and use that to shuttle software onto it - ugh.

 

[luvwagn]

Progress!

Switcher doesn't work, but video output does!

Got to figure out how to configure stuff now.

The TEST feature says it's going to erase the card. What do s this mean, any concern?

 

[micheledipaola]

Progress!

Switcher doesn't work, but video output does!

Got to figure out how to configure stuff now.

The TEST feature says it's going to erase the card. What do s this mean, any concern?

I knew it! Direct video-out signal seems to never fail.

Reading through the first posts, you will discover that under proDOS the card memory can be used as a RAM disk - in this case, testing it will erase any file saved there.

Your issue anyway seems to be with the ColorSwitch... which seems to me quite common. I would recommend to focus on setting up devices, disk images, programs etc and have fun with the PCT as much as possible - then maybe new developments of the ColorSwitch clone will help us

 

[luvwagn]

So no matter what I do, i can't get 720K 3.5" drive emulation to work via Gotek and the nanja.info adapter. How did you get this working?

Meanwhile, any chance you have a MSDOSVOL type "hard-file" that is bootable and functional so I can test with? So far, i can get this thing to pass all its tests, I can configure it "properly", but i haven't been able to get it to boot anything.

 

[luvwagn]

I ended up only able to fit the mostly empty 20mb dos "partition" (from the pct-connectors-rebuild github) onto my Alltech CF card's 2nd partition. But got it to boot!



I'll try a bit longer with the color switch and floppy stuff, and see if I can get anywhere further.

Then, it's all for sale!

 

[micheledipaola]

So no matter what I do, i can't get 720K 3.5" drive emulation to work via Gotek and the nanja.info adapter. How did you get this working?

Meanwhile, any chance you have a MSDOSVOL type "hard-file" that is bootable and functional so I can test with? So far, i can get this thing to pass all its tests, I can configure it "properly", but i haven't been able to get it to boot anything.

Honestly I am not sure I ever used 720K disk images, but anyway I had to try a lot of DOS images before finding some actually working on the Gotek.

I have this zip file in my archive, that should be the MSDOSVOL I have on the USB stick plugged to the xDrive inside my IIGS. Let me know if it will work for you, otherwise I should get the actual IIGS and move the file from there. Remember to set the path to the DOS volume in the PCT panel (there should be a README file with instructions inside the zip).

 

[luvwagn]

Figured out my colorswitch problem!!! The wiring doesn't make sense based on colours, and it turns out that by reading the schematics here https://github.com/patdie421/pct-connectors-rebuild/tree/main/hardware/colorswitch/v0.3, and following a facebook post by Chris Satterfield in Apple II Cards group, the proper wiring is as such:

1 - CSYNC (black wire)
2 - N/C (blue wire)
3 - Green (green wire)
4 - Red (red wire)
5 - Blue (brown wire)
6 - N/C

Wiring that pattern to the DA15 got my Color Switch working!!!

 

[leleco]

Could someone please help me?

I've never been able to get my board to work. For years I've been trying unsuccessfully, always running into some obstacle, like a lack of a pre-installed MS-DOS image or a bootable floppy disk, etc.

I don't have any of the installation kits, but with the help of the project on Github and this discussion, I made a composite cable, and so far I've managed to get the board to run and open the configuration menu.

I'm asking for help to validate if the board boots and works in these situations:

• Using only the composite output;
• Configuring only the MSDOSVOL image and disabling drivers A and B.

With that configuration I can see the PCT splashscreen and than nothing more happen.

Besides that, it was possible to verify that the 768K of RAM is OK using the PCTRAM.SYSTEM test program.

Any help is welcome.

Thank you.

 

[luvwagn]

Could someone please help me?

I've never been able to get my board to work. For years I've been trying unsuccessfully, always running into some obstacle, like a lack of a pre-installed MS-DOS image or a bootable floppy disk, etc.

I don't have any of the installation kits, but with the help of the project on Github and this discussion, I made a composite cable, and so far I've managed to get the board to run and open the configuration menu.

I'm asking for help to validate if the board boots and works in these situations:

• Using only the composite output;
• Configuring only the MSDOSVOL image and disabling drivers A and B.

With that configuration I can see the PCT splashscreen and than nothing more happen.

Besides that, it was possible to verify that the 768K of RAM is OK using the PCTRAM.SYSTEM test program.

Any help is welcome.

Thank you.

Add a screen shot of what you end up seeing on your PC Transporter output? Does it say that MSDOSVOL is not a DOS Disk or something to that effect? If so, that's correct - the MSDOSVOL is just a small DOS volume that holds some utilities from Applied Engineering folks.

I saw that @micheledipaola added a DOS volume just above, you could try that one?

 

[leleco]

Add a screen shot of what you end up seeing on your PC Transporter output? Does it say that MSDOSVOL is not a DOS Disk or something to that effect? If so, that's correct - the MSDOSVOL is just a small DOS volume that holds some utilities from Applied Engineering folks.

I saw that @micheledipaola added a DOS volume just above, you could try that one?

Hi @luvwagn,

Tks for your response. It just hang with a black screen.

Yes, tested with @micheledipaola image. Next I will try with those on Github.

I´m using my CFFA300 to mount the images.

Regards

 

[luvwagn]

I've never tried composite output from it, only the rgb via color switch.

Do you have a floppy drive configured and connected?

You can get into the "BIOS" by doing shift+caps+caps I think? And reconfigure drives and such

 

[leleco]

I've never tried composite output from it, only the rgb via color switch.

Do you have a floppy drive configured and connected?

You can get into the "BIOS" by doing shift+caps+caps I think? And reconfigure drives and such

Could you try using only the composite connection to see if the board boots and if the MS-DOS prompt appears?

I don't have the PCT cable to connect my 3 1/2 inch Apple drive. I can access the BIOS and I've already configured only the C: drive, leaving the others as "None".

Did you try @micheledipaola's image without a floppy disk in the drive? The PCT manual states that, without a floppy disk in drive A:, drive C: becomes the next drive in the boot sequence.

Sincerely

 

[superjer2000]

Now after solving the challenge with the TransDrive I can start dreaming of other possible developments

The first coming to my mind is networking... @Arbee care to share how is your work of reverse-engineering proceeding?


Now I am dreaming of an all-star collaboration between you two and Speccie, to create a new device driver which will interface the Uthernet II with the PCT and bring it under DOS / LAN Manager... is it too much?

If there was a way to turn the Uthernet II into some sort of NE2000 network card that would be awesome. I use a suite of apps on my 5150 (which has a 3com card) called mTCP which includes a really good ANSI compatible telnet client for BBSing. mTCP also provides the plumbing for a web browser called Microweb which is nothing short of an incredible feat of programming - it's a very usable browser (multithreaded even!) that works really well on an 8088 (and would fly on the V30 on the PCT). Lastly, there are a couple of file sharing apps I use as well so I can load disk images directly from my modern NAS server, and mount a remote network share that also lives on my NAS.

ETHFLOP to share floppies over a network (https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?t...py-emulator-for-dos.73029/page-4#post-1262961)

And EtherDFS to mount network shares (https://mateusz.fr/etherdfs/)

mTCP has added EtherDFS-like capability which I have yet to experiment with.

 

[superjer2000]

Could someone please help me?

I've never been able to get my board to work. For years I've been trying unsuccessfully, always running into some obstacle, like a lack of a pre-installed MS-DOS image or a bootable floppy disk, etc.

I don't have any of the installation kits, but with the help of the project on Github and this discussion, I made a composite cable, and so far I've managed to get the board to run and open the configuration menu.

I'm asking for help to validate if the board boots and works in these situations:

• Using only the composite output;
• Configuring only the MSDOSVOL image and disabling drivers A and B.

With that configuration I can see the PCT splashscreen and than nothing more happen.

Besides that, it was possible to verify that the 768K of RAM is OK using the PCTRAM.SYSTEM test program.

Any help is welcome.

Thank you.

Can you provide some detail on your configuration, specifically:

* Is your PCTransporter installed in a IIgs (or a different Apple II)?
* Do you have a colorswitch card and is that connected to a IIgs RGB monitor? (Before you were using Composite video) If so, what was happening when it was connected that way?
* To confirm, you are able to access the PCTransporter control panel (Shift-Caps-Caps)?

What you're describing (seeing the PCT screen and then a black screen), is very similar to the issue I was having (which is in another thread here) when I moved my PCT to a different IIgs with a TranswarpGS accelerator. I would get the PCT splash screen, it would do the memory test but then when it should have been loading DOS the screen would go black. I couldn't get it to work so I ended up just moving the PCT back to the other IIgs which has an AppleSqueezer accelerator.

 

[leleco]

Can you provide some detail on your configuration, specifically:

* Is your PCTransporter installed in a IIgs (or a different Apple II)?
* Do you have a colorswitch card and is that connected to a IIgs RGB monitor? (Before you were using Composite video) If so, what was happening when it was connected that way?
* To confirm, you are able to access the PCTransporter control panel (Shift-Caps-Caps)?

What you're describing (seeing the PCT screen and then a black screen), is very similar to the issue I was having (which is in another thread here) when I moved my PCT to a different IIgs with a TranswarpGS accelerator. I would get the PCT splash screen, it would do the memory test but then when it should have been loading DOS the screen would go black. I couldn't get it to work so I ended up just moving the PCT back to the other IIgs which has an AppleSqueezer accelerator.

Hi @superjer2000,

I´m trying it on a Apple iie and IIGS and I can access the control painel on it, I don´t have the colorswitch just using the composite outpu, the black screen came before the memory test, i never saw it.

So, one of my questions is whether it appears on the composite video output. Investigating more futher I suspect I have a fault IWM because I could´t access my floopy drive conected to PCT via Prodos, only RAMDisk. Since i got the card I never see it working, this thread encourage me to test it again but I´m afraid that´s the case.

If you can confirm that it´s possible to boot MS-DOS just with the HD image and no floppy or with it disabled in control panel I appreciate.

 

[luvwagn]

I've booted with no floppy disk connected.

Yu won't get a signal out of the Apple's composite output.

Do you mean a composite monitor connected to the PC Transporter card?