[aprssig] Replacement binaries for UIDIGI ? (stand-alone digi software)

[Gregg Wonderly]

Scott Miller wrote:
>> It does look like everybody is keeping their TNC2 softwares as secret, and
>> distributing only binaries.   Understandable when it was current stuff,
>> but why still ?
> 
> Probably for the same reason hams like to sell 20 year old HTs for 80% 
> of the purchase price.  We assign greater value to our stuff than is 
> realistic.
> 
> Is the processor socketed on most TNC2 clones?  If so, you could just 
> skip the Z80 programming entirely and build yourself a daughter board 
> that'd plug in to the processor socket.  You've already got the RAM, 
> RTC, and all of the radio interface stuff.  These days it's not hard to 
> squeeze a decent microcontroller between the pins on a 0.600" wide DIP 
> board.
> 
> Granted, you'd probably have $15 of parts in there rather than a $2 
> EPROM, but it'd be a lot more flexible.  And you could work in C, Java, 
> or whatever instead of Z80 assembly.

again:
	ld	bc,mvcnt
	ld	hl,iosrc
	ld	de,iodst
	ldir
wait:
	ld	a,any
	or	a
	jr	nz,again
	jr	wait


What Scott, you don't have fond memories of Z80 assembly?  I (re)wrote a whole
kermit protocol implementation and UI in Z80 assembly in the 80s...  Does
that date me :-)  You are absolutely right though, you can put a much more 
powerful processor on board that device in a smaller package and get some real 
work done.  You could even spend some time to make it something that others 
could assemble and use!

Gregg Wonderly
W5GGW