Diacom plus on Pentium laptops

[Ken Kelly]

TBK,

I believe you are correct on the 4 interfaces that Rinda is
compatible with, but the Diacom cable would have to have a
-10 to -12 volt supply to be able to create an RS-232
signal. The Maxim chips now make that easy, but I don't
think they were available when Rinda started the Diacom. Do
you really think the Rinda cable attempts to actively shift
levels? I thought the circuitry just shifted the pinouts
around for the various standards.
		Ken

TBK wrote:
> 
> The C3 uses either the CE lamp (12V) or Serial 160 output 5V. P4 8192 is 5V.
> The Diacom cable buffers the signal, so output voltage is not the reason
> they use the parallel port. It is the best way to simulate a software uart,
> control the DIAG line modes and talk to three different hardware systems:
> 
> C3 CE lamp
> C3 Serial 160
> P4 Serial 160
> P4 8192
> 
> Rinda crammed all of that into the circuit board in the cable.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Kelly <kenkelly at lucent.com>
> To: diy_efi at efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu <diy_efi at efi332.eng.ohio-state.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, July 28, 1998 1:15 PM
> Subject: Re: Diacom plus on Pentium laptops
> 
> >The Diacom software runs on the Parallel port so it doesn't
> >use a Uart. They use the Parallel port because the ALDL port
> >does not have RS-232 voltages. You must use a level
> >converter to convert the 0 to 5 volt signal to +/- 10 volts.
> >Diacom uses the serial data link in the Parallel port
> >because it has 0-5 volt levels. They do there own timing
> >control.
> >
> > Ken
> >