Tandy TRS80 model 100 to Psion connection

[Martin]

Daren

James (The chap that posted the the article on fixing the LZ buzzing) has posted another article you might be interested in "Tandy TRS-80 Disk Video Interface" (here)... Enjoy Martin

Sincerely
Martin

[Daren]

That was interesting, funny enough one of those popped up on ebay last week, I was tempted to have a bid but it went for quite a bit of money in the end, over £400! I have a REX module in mine and that is very handy, I also have a SD card drive but have not really used it much as yet.

I wonder if James has tried hooking his LZ and Model 100 up, they really do make a lovely pair.

[Daren]

I tried sending tab delimited text from the Model 100 to the Psion db file, as suspected it worked very well, so creating data files with qwerty typing no longer requires me to boot up the PC, and whilst the Model 100 is not portable in the Psion sense, it is still a lot more “field friendly” than a laptop. This makes it ideal for creating db records in a quite quick and simple way. The M100 has BASIC programming built in, so if I ever get the time I might create a program that creates databases for Psion, for now though using the document writing program will do.

[1333david]

Excellent thanks Darren. I've just transferred files back and forth with the trusty NC100 and Psion XP and it works a treat. Now I can edit OPL programs on the Amstrad and transfer back to Psion. Like you say the NC100 has built in Comms, so I connect the Psion comms link cable to the NC100 serial port, choose the file to XModem Send or Receive and it works.
The NC100 is a great little machine in my opinion. It's portable and has a lovely keyboard, a decent LCD screen and batteries last for ages. It also has built in BBC Basic and a great Word processor (Protext) which I also have on PC and Amiga. It's also really easy to convert Protext files to RTF format If anyone would like any more info on the NC100 let me know.

[Daren]

David that’s interesting to hear, I had a NC100 some years back but I bought it with a broken screen so did not get to use it properly.

Next I am going to attempt connecting a Siemens Pocket Reader, a 90’s pen style OCR text scanner, people have connected them with other PDAs, so in theory it should be possible

http://www.thomasdoppler.com/_pocketreader/oview_e.htm

The intention, assuming I can get it working is to scan printed text into the capture buffer or more likely an OPL program, but have to do a bit of research first.

[Daren]

Just for fun I tried linking 2 Psions, just used a null modem DB25 male to male adapter to join the 2 commslinks, worked well, actually will be quite handy to shuttle files between the Psions without getting the computer involved.

[1333david]

I was only thinking the other day about possible two player games with Psions linked together via the comms port, like battleships.