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[ECS BASIC] Any way to address the ECS printer/serial port?


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Yes, I'm wanting to go full sadomasochim - I want to connect my ECS to my Linux box to act as a serial terminal using nothing but ECS BASIC. But I can't figure out how to directly address the ECS' printer/serial port in BASIC. I see how to print specifically, but not directly address the serial port for other-than-printing.

Also, has anyone figured out how to use the Intellivoice's built-in voice samples with ECS BASIC programs? I doubt it's possible, but figure I have to ask.

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FWIW, I did develop a cart around 6 years ago called the ECS SimpleDev cart. I think there is only one copy out there in the wild.

 

It was actually a kinda interesting cart. It used a JLP board, and provided a simple interface to store up to 10 programs. You could download programs to your ECS via the ECS tape interface. You'd compile them on your PC and then run a FSK encoder. Then, using an audio cable from your PC to the ECS's cassette input, you could download your program to the SimpleDev cart and store it in flash.

 

It's like the Black Whale Minus Minus.

 

The SimpleDev cart had a bunch of generically useful routines linked in ROM at $Fxxx, so you could use those routines from your own programs. I even produced a couple demo programs for the SimpleDev cart.

 

I never released it outside a very narrow audience. This was a relatively quick hack I put together in 2012 at the request of (... I don't remember! ...). I suppose I could dig it out for posterity. Some of the development work (a very small part) did actually influence LTO Flash.

 

I haven't tried it, but I think the ECS SimpleDev ROM should run w/ LTO Flash. I don't see why it wouldn't. It's a rather unique/bizarre historical artifact, though.

Edited by intvnut
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Well, shoot.

 

Also, I had misremembered the serial/printer port on the ECS. I thought it had both send and receive. It doesn't - send-only. So couldn't serial terminal with it no with any software. Oh well, probably good for my sanity, because I bet a reasonable terminal emulator would be impossible to program in that limited BASIC anyway. :-P

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The problem with ECS basic or even KC basic is they didn't have peek/poke commands to access Intellivision hardware.

 

Maybe wih Intybasic you can access Intellivoice hardware. Maybe you could use the LTOflash serial interface with an intellivision terminal program. But you'd have to program on a PC rather than the Intellivision.

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Maybe you could use the LTOflash serial interface with an intellivision terminal program.

 

With a very slight change, this existing terminal program will work on LTO Flash. It's far from perfect, but it's strong enough to run vim.

 

 

There's no reason you couldn't write a similar program in IntyBASIC using LTO Flash's serial port.

Edited by intvnut
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