Pulled these out, just to make sure they are still working - they are.... the Model 100 has picked up some lines in the screen thou. I'm really not sure how to fix that.
I've held on to these for years - mostly because they are just cool to have, and some because I always think these would be great to use for portable #packet #radio
At one time I even had all the cables to for a #KenwoodTH-D7 #HT
#Tandy102 #RadioShackModel100 #VintageComputer #NECPC8201A
#HamRadio
Today's project, for which I spilt blood, is finally to get a log of the output from the garage mounted solar panels, using a 40 year old computer to do the logging just because, er, why not? An Arduino is calculating output in watts from the time between pulses which come from an energy meter in the garage, sending them by serial connection to the NEC PC8201a which does the logging.
It's powered by a very old and slightly crusty home made variable power supply.
The NEC is running a program written in Microsoft BASIC. Like most people of my age I started writing BASIC before this computer was made, but it's far from my favourite language so I've not written any BASIC in a *very* long time (except a loader for a spectrum program a few years ago). Because I had never used it before, and on this occasion I could, this program uses the ON COM GOSUB feature. This feature interrupts the flow of the main program whenever data arrives on the serial port, similar in concept to how hardware interrupts work on the processor itself. A bizarre thing for any BASIC dialect to include! As this is BASIC, all variables are global and there's no stack to save state on.
It has 16 K of RAM, shared by the program, file system, my logged data etc.
#basic #msbasic #goto #gosub #NECPC8201A #playingwithcomputers
For the last twelve years I've been meaning to get around to working out how to switch things on and off automatically depending on how much sun we have. This afternoon I finally got around to making something listen to the P1 serial port on our electricity meter so that it can do that.
The Arduino receives 115200 bps serial from the meter, turns on a green LED if we're exporting more than 1 kW to the grid and prints a few interesting things to a second serial port at 9600 bps which gets displayed on my old NEC laptop running a terminal emulator.
Obviously the idea is to eventually switch on more than just an LED. I have some relays somewhere...
The NEC PC8201A is still a very useful tool sometimes.
#electronics #arduino #NECPC8201A #RetroComputing
When our kids were small they were amused by a BASIC program that I wrote on my first laptop, an NEC PC8201A, which beeped when keys were pressed. I'm hoping that our grandchild will also be amused by this contraption beeping at him when he presses keys.
These are fabulously reliable computers and this one still works exactly as it did when it was new 40 years ago. However it might not still work had I not spotted a leaking nicad backup battery about 15 years ago and replaced it.
The clock is not Y2K compatible so I've set the date to 1923. It's possible to modify the ROM to replace "19" with "20", but I don't think I'll ever bother with that.
https://hembrow.eu/personal/necpc8201a.html
#retrocomputing #NECPC8201A #oldcomputer #BASIC #8085 #Model100
@hotkey Yeah, they are a bit addictive when you get into it. Buy one, then before you know it, you have a closet and workbench full of 'restorable' parts units! So I tell myself.
My shelf of shame has non-working or 'slightly broken' units that are salvageable. My journey is to learn more about them while I repair them. I hope :)
#TRS80Model100
#TRS80Model102
#TRS80Model200 #RetroComputing
#NECPC8201a
LeRoy Miller
David Hembrow
bgrier π¨π¦ π