Connecting NEWDOS to Wimodem232

Overview

There are various RS232 to Wifi dongles around now. They allow you to establish a TCP connection to a PC from your Model T serial port.

LaddieAlpha offers a TCP listening mode to support direct connections. But any TPDD emulator, or a real TPDD can work if you have enough software to rig it up.

This article describes how to connect NEWDOS -> Wimodem232 -> LaddieAlpha in TCP mode.

Preparation

1. Update firmware on Wimodem232. Be aware that the Wimodem232 may switch baud rates, generally to 300 baud after this and you need to change baud rates in TELCOM to match.

2. Up the baud on Wimodm232 to 600 baud. This is the fastest baud TELCOM can interact with Wimodem and not lose characters.

AT<ENTER>
OK
AT*B600
OK

3. Re-enter TELCOM at 600 baud

Stat 48N1D
Term
AT
OK

4. Determine your IP address

ATI
...
IP:192.168.1.66
...

Note down your IP address.

5. Switch baud to 19200bps for TPDD mode

AT*B19200
OK

6. Re-enter TELCOM at 19200bps

F8 (Bye)
Disconnect? Y
Stat 98N1D
Term
AT
OK

7. Launch LaddieAlpha.EXE

With a command prompt open, and from whatever directory you have a copy of LaddieAlpha, run it in tcp listener mode

.\LaddieAlpha.EXE tcp://*:8085

This means, listen on all IP addresses at port 8085. You can pick any unprivileged port, you can give a specific IP address. Note: network security best practices and configuring your firewall is out of scope for this article. Depending on your operating system, you will need to ALLOW the inbound TCP connection on port 8085. Otherwise you will simply find the Wimodem232 is unable to connect.

C:\projects\modelt\laddiealpha > .\LaddieAlpha.EXE tcp://*:8085
================================================================================
LaddieAlpha Tandy Portable Disk Drive Emulator (Speaker To Machines, Inc.)
Built        : 3/28/2020 2:08:10 PM
File Version : 2.1.0.0
Version      : 2.1.0.0
Copyright    : Copyright c Speaker To Machines, Inc. 2014
Working Dir  : C:\projects\modelt\laddiealpha
================================================================================
Configure listener
Waiting for TCP connection...

8. Find the IP address of your PC

On Windows, use ipconfig, Linux, ifconfig, etc.

In my case it was 192.168.1.85

9. Dial LaddieAlpha

ATDT 192.168.1.85:8085
CONNECT

C:\projects\modelt\laddiealpha > .\LaddieAlpha.EXE tcp://*:8085
================================================================================
LaddieAlpha Tandy Portable Disk Drive Emulator (Speaker To Machines, Inc.)
Built        : 3/28/2020 2:08:10 PM
File Version : 2.1.0.0
Version      : 2.1.0.0
Copyright    : Copyright c Speaker To Machines, Inc. 2014
Working Dir  : C:\projects\modelt\laddiealpha
================================================================================
Configure listener
Waiting for TCP connection...
Connected

10. Launch NEWDOS in appropriate delay mode:

BASIC
CALL 63012,2,2
F4 (Disk)

Note that I sometimes have issues where this gets stuck. Generally to fix I exit NEWDOS, go into TELCOM, Stat 98N1D, Term, F8-Bye, and re-launch NEWDOS with CALL 63012,2,2 and this resolves the handshake issue.

Note Note: to run NEWDOS in delay mode, you have to use the CALL every time. Launching from TS-DOS entry on the menu will start with no delay, and it won't work!

There is information in Ken's documentation on how to change the TS-DOS launcher to incorporate the delay.