Fairlight-CMI

On my Series II, I don't recall any parallel ports, but there was a 
serial printer port. I even had a small board that went into the Epson 
FX80+ dot matrix printer that added a serial interface to the printer, 
so I could print to the Epson from the CMI.

I wrote a bit of software for the CMI and used the CMI serial port to 
transfer files from the Fairlight to a PC. I transferred a couple of VC 
files that way - essentially exact "digital" file copies - and then 
extracted the waveforms to WAV files (8bits resolution and 16KB in 
length). I could have developed it further to transfer entire disks 
(thus archiving everything), but I ran out of time/money.

This was in the mid 1990s or so. I still have the CMI, printer, cables, 
etc., but I doubt I'll work on it again. I'd sell it all if the right 
person comes along.

However (after giving this many years of thought), I believe that the 
best approach would be to build a floppy drive emulator/interface which 
would intercept all floppy disk data (bidirectionally) and send it to a 
USB connection. The device would be inserted in the CMI's floppy ribbon 
cable(s), and be completely invisible to the CMI - thus, no CMI software 
changes, and it would work on all CMI models. I think that I have 
detailed this before in this group.




On 2010-03-05 10:22, dd_62622 wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I wonder .,did anybody tried to communicate with the IIx using the parallel port on the Q133 card.
>
> When reading the cmi mainframe service manual (page 22)
> I read about 2 general purpose parallel ports.(PIA)
>
> this is the part after the (ACIA's) on page 21.
>
> Is there a possability for IIx users to construct a connection between the cmi and a ibm or mac ?
>
> cheers,
> David


-- 
Greg Holmes
GH Services, Ontario, Canada
http://www.ghservices.com/
http://www.gregholmes.com/