I was wrong about my #ASR33, the re-crimping was fluke, it was random.

I took apart (hard work) to find that decoder clutch was not tripping, so it is not a BREAK at all, but the print drum was spinning on anyway.

Further investigation (by poking with a finger, not ideal in a moving mechanical machine) identified the end stop for the print drum was not catching all the time.

I "tightened" the spring (twisted the loop with fine nosed pliers). After, of course, losing the spring.

All OK now.

Panic for a bit...

I updated code on my #ASR33 driver, and screwed up as it is an old ESP32-S1 which crashed. Simple to fix.

But I figured, why not update to latest ESP32-S3 board. Did that.

Constantly showing break, "constant chatter of NULL characters", well, mostly, occasionally stopped and worked for a bit.

Tried old s/w, no joy.

Tried another new board.

And another...

Fixed old board and put back, still no joy.

Finally, re-crimped the connector.

Phew, that simple. Working again.

The #TT2020 typewriter font looks pretty good in this #PyGame #ASR33 emulator by @_ing , even if it never gets the chance to typeset whole words or lines, and keeps to the initial letterforms every time.

https://github.com/hughpyle/ttyemu.git

OK, call me mad, but I have ordered a handful of these. They'll be on sale in a couple of weeks.

This will be a very specialised and limited market I feel 🙂 and not make me any money (C.M.O.T.RevK again).

Tempted to throw in a 3D printed custom answer back drum with each order though...

It was definitely a fun project though. https://youtu.be/IrIK8SgE8c8

P.S. Self contained Colossal Cave Adventure is included 🙂

#ASR33 #Teletype #RetroComputing #ESP32