How to use VT100 Emulator with Altair-duino

[@andreasfreund5972]

Hey Chris, yesterday I got my Altair Duino Pro Kit ... I assembled all the parts and it works without any issues. You made a great job. I love it ...

[@Mark_Lawler]

Great kit Chris!!! Unfortunately the monitor you suggested was out of stock and I tried what I thought would be the equivalent low end model similar to what you had listed (starts with an 'E'). Very poor fuzzy display quality (bits echoing regardless of clock/phase/etc. settings). I know the VT100 VGA from the kit works as I attached to my LG desktop computer monitor and the quality was great. Trying again with another brand of 4:3 VGA monitor now on order. I'm now debugging my keyboard. I have one of the newer USB Keyboard units and the cheap USB keyboard I ordered (starts with an "m") didn't work at all with the unit (cannot even toggle the numlock or alpha lock indicator lights; when I plugged it into my desktop I was given an error that its USB power requirements were too high and out of spec). Ordering another USB keyboard from a different manufacturer. Fingers crossed on both. If they work I'll post the URLs... Until then I'm using Putty terminal software on my laptop. Again, great piece of kit Chris. Enjoying it very much!

[@Mark_Lawler]

UPDATE: Works perfect! I ended up ordering a Cocar 4:3 security monitor with built in VGA and the text is very crisp. Also, the cheapest Logitech USB keyboard I could find also worked! sending the other brands back to Amazon. Thanks for an amazing kit. Looking forward to hours and hours of fun and programming in 8080 assembly, 'C', and BASIC... Best...

[@IamBock]

I'm loving my Altair Duino. I got it to give me a baseline of how an Altair 8800 should work while I build an Altair 8800 from recreation boards. BUT, I'm having one issue with the VT100 terminal emulator output. The first character of each line justified to the left side of the screen is missing. It's like the terminal is printing from the second character on only. So the startup text for the terminal says 'SCII', 'opyright', and 'SB' for the first word in each line instead of 'ASCII', 'Copyright', and 'USB' This happens when I run 4K BASIC as well. I'm greeted with the EMORY SIZE? instead of MEMORY SIZE. And when I type anything into the interpreter I can't see the first character I type. Are certain VGA monitors not compatible with this setup?

[@chrisdavis3055]

You need to adjust your monitor's horizontal alignment. It's usually one of your monitor's menu options.

[@meneerjansen00]

How can I make my own (floppy) disk images to use with CP/M on this machine? I'm interested in MuMath (which is relatively easy to find for CP/M 2.2), which could do your Math home work back in the day. ;)

[@RoyAntaw]

I HAVE THE OLDER ALTAIR DUINO KIT without the VT100 terminal board but I have actual DEC VT420 connected to RS232 and I use the Saved Config 0 with I/O set R232 port for VT420. I have been running this config for over 6 months without any issue :-) Is it possible to upgrade the bamboo case to the new case?

[@sjj500]

Mine is still stuck on the copyright screen, even after all those steps. 😢

[@chrisdavis3055]

You need to make sure the SD card is being read. Go to the forums and post.

[@sjj500]

@@chrisdavis3055 I found out what it was. The jumpers was set wrong on the board. it's working now. :)