Thanks, I wish I had remembered that I could have gone to archive.org.
Anyhow here's how it finally came down.
Stuck at the moment using Windows.
Using putty I learned I could send LTRS and FIGS with the alt-30 and alt-31 from the PC numeric keypad. Swell! Then I could also use atl-30 & 31 in notepad and wordpad, but neither would let me save in plain text without losing the desired code. Wanted me to save in unicode. Ok, tried that but nothing comes out to the loop. Then I recalled DOS EDIT. It worked. Guess they forgot to screw that one up with unicode.
Back to trying to remember what the original mission was.
--- ---- You said "tomorrow" yesterday. The above comments or recommendations are SWAG. Use at your own risk. John, W9DDD
On Wed, Dec 13, 2023, at 3:40 PM, Jordan Spencer Cunningham wrote:
The original firmware I shipped the boards with uses a non-printable character, hex code 0x1F, to force the board to issue FIGS to the loop while in ASCII > ITA2/USTTY translate mode. In the scripts I've cobbled together through the years to control the loop from a Raspberry Pi, I use printf to issue the raw bytes to the board when needed since you can't simply type the character in from your keyboard: printf "\x1E" > /dev/ttyACM0
0x1E hex translates to 11110 in binary, which is what ITA2/USTTY uses for FIGS anyway. The board will also accept 0x1F from the computer to send LTRS on the loop, and 0x1F translates to 11111 in binary, which is what ITA2/USTTY uses for LTRS. So even though it could be programmed in the firmware to be any character, I chose these two because there wouldn't be any accidental conflict using some other character.
It's all documented here-- search for "Issue LTRS from computer" on the page. (I linked to the Wayback machine archive of this page since teletype.net is down for a while until I have time to migrate to a FOSS wiki software).
The following isn't important if you're using the board in ASCII translate mode (this is the default configuration that translates ASCII from the computer to ITA2/USTTY on the loop), and I believe I notified GreenKeys about this issue a long time ago, but it bears repeating since we're talking about these control characters and in case you or someone else runs into this problem:
I originally also selected 0x16 as the code to send from the computer to force the board to go into config mode (I have scripts that sometimes change the board's configurations automatically to accommodate certain functionality). This isn't a problem when you're using ASCII translate mode on the board like I do, but if you happen to be doing your ASCII > ITA2/USTTY translation in software on the computer and have the board set to notranslate mode, you will force the board to go into config mode whenever you try to send a "P" to the loop (0x16 or 10110 is "P" in ITA2/USTTY), and the board will stop sending characters to the loop until you exit the board from config mode. This was a major oversight on my part-- I was so focused on finding a non-printable control character to use for this that minimized potential conflicts with ASCII teleprinters that I neglected to double-check the ITA2/USTTY table to see what character it translated to. If you or anyone happens to run into this problem, I issued new firmware for the board to change this to the percent character (%) instead. If you need help programming it, I'd be happy to program it for you. Otherwise I can get the new firmware over via email for anyone with the proper knowledge, software, and equipment to program themselves.
On Tue, Dec 5, 2023, at 8:14 PM, eric wrote:
I have a vague recollection that Jordan's revision of the firmware might
have had a special character (like % or something) that did this? But I
could be wrong. It would certainly be easy enough to add to the
firmware.
Of course you can also put the board in transparent mode where it just
sends on the bottom 5 bits of anything you send to it. But this means
you have to deal with the baudot character translation yourself.
On 2023-12-05 13:52, John, W9DDD wrote:
> Setup.
>
> PC connected to volpe board (Jordan version). Volpe driving loop with
> 28 that has horizontal tab feature.
>
> Batch file on PC sending text file. Currently RY and Fox messages
> fine. Printer needs FIGS G to tab. & in ASCII does the trick.
>
> Issue
>
> It is recommended to send two LTRS characters after FIGS G (&).
> Otherwise the first printed character after the TAB is out of
> alignment. I haven't figured out how to send LTRS (or manybe BLANK?)
> as a fill character via the Volpe (wonder if Eric or Jordan version
> makes a difference)
>
> (from keyboard typing it performs beautifully, but no need for fill
> character because I can't type 100 wpm)
>
> --
> ---
> ----
> You said "tomorrow" yesterday.
>
> The above comments or recommendations are SWAG. Use at your own risk.
> John, W9DDD
>
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>
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