Category computers

I’m having some problems with a subroutine in the small program I’ve been working on mikroBasic for the Honda Music Link stuffs I’ve been doing.

Could any of you help me?

To start, here’s a copy of the program in a text file: hml_mikrobasic_help.txt

Here’s the project itself, zipped up: hml_mikrobasic_help.zip

The IDE / compiler itself, mikroBasic, is available here.

(I’m just using the demo version, and the limit is only on code size, so feel free to install it. I don’t come anywhere near the code limit, and when one does it’s rather obvious, as the compiler just refuses to compile it.

The problem I’m having is with sendCommand(), and specifically the variable iPodCommand, which is the first one passed to it. What I expect to happen is that whatever is passed as the first argument to sendCommand() will be set and available within the procedure. Instead, I seem to be getting something else.

As the program is currently listed, I would expect the output sendCommand(powerOn, 0) to be 0xFF 0x55 0x04 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x04 0xF8. However, the output I receive is 0xFF 0x55 0x02 0xFE 0xB9 0x47.

The expected packet is broken down as follows:

0xFF – Header 1
0x55 – Header 2
0x04 – Data Length
0x00 – Data 1
0x00 – Data 2
0x00 – Data 3
0x04 – Data 4
0x08 – Checksum (0x100 – Data Length – All Data Packets)

The received packet breaks down this way:

0xFF – Expected Header 1
0x55 – Expected Header 2
0x02 – Length appropriate if the constant referenced by iPodCommand were two bites in length.
0xFE – Data 1 (Not sure where this comes from.)
0xB9 – Data 2 (This one neither…)
0x47 – Checksum, calculated properly off of unexpected Data bytes.

When I run things through the hardware debugger I’m not seeing the variable iPodCommand as an array, and I’m not sure why or how (it just shows a value of 0xDF). That, though, and it’s not working as expected, is leading me to believe that I’m doing something wrong in setting up sendCommand().

So, could any of you please help me? I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

Thanks!

I took some time today to write up information about archiving Atari 800XL floppy disks. This is as simple as copying them from an Atari 1050 to images on a PC using some special hardware and software, but I hadn’t found any this-is-what-I-did writeups, so I figured I’d do one.

After I’ve had time to sort through the images, carve out personal data, and come up with a template for the pages about the disks, I’ll make them available to others.

For now, though, feel free to read the article in its current, mostly-unedited form: http://nuxx.net/wiki_archive/A/Atari_800XL_Disk_Archiving

Ahh. 49 disks, 81 sides (some disks only have data on a single side), two unreadable sides, and 7,466,256 bytes later I now have images of all the disks available to me on my parents’ Atari 800XL.

Now to do a bit more cataloging, sort out what contains personal data, and find a good way to post them. That bit may come another day. ;)

Imaging Atari floppies.

I’ve spent most of today thus far imaging floppy disks using my work laptop, an Atari 1050, an Atari 800XL (as a SIO power injector), a Universal SIO2PC Interface, and ProSystem.

I still haven’t figured out exactly how I’m going to archive and distribute them, but it’ll probably involve serially numbered disks, a page (or pages) on nuxx.net, a listing of files on each disk, bad sectors in each image, and an optical scan of each disk. There will also be scans of the different varieties of Tyvek and paper sleeves, including logos of the computer stores advertised on them.

Doing this will be a good bit of work, but then (at least) the disks will be archived.

I’ve got a bunch of hardware here that I just can’t bring myself to throw out. For example, a Digi AccelePort C1 (with a REAL 16C650) which I had previously used with a 3Com ImpactIQ for ISDN network access from 1997 through 2000. There is also the first computer I bought, a Pentium 90 which I’d paid almost $3k for, with 17″ monitor. A real, made in the USA 3Com Sportster 56k x2 modem from the time before the v.34 standard was formalized, which had been subsequently flashed to v.34. Some great-for-wardriving Pentium II 300 laptops, etc.