exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Putting out a call for any existing Atari ST users who have the
RSVE mod in place on their machines and are now currently using it successfully.

I've just installed the RSVE mod on my Mega ST4 and while I
think the installation is correct, I'm unable to get it to
communicate correctly with my WiModem232.

The red LED on the RSVE mod does light up whenever I use the
HSModem software with the RSVE portion enabled.

Some questions I have that I can't seem to find answers for
in any documentation:

Should the red LED stay on all the time or does it go on/off
with access by software like comms programs?

Is the SERIAL.CPX supposed to be continued to be used and if
so, what is it supposed to be set to? HSModem remaps all the
19.2k calls to 38.4 so should it be set to 19.2k or 38.4?

From an Express Times publication article, I used the same
settings as an Express sysop that had this working:

" =========================================================
= ARTICLE BY: Darren Trutzenbach (King Arthur) =
=========== SysOp of The Round Table BBS, 300-28.8 kbps =======

RSVE works great at 38400 on 8 Mghz machines, if you select higher speeds then you will tend to loose characters on slower machines, I have mine set at 38400 on a 16 Mghz Mega STe, I do loose the odd character at 57600, but 38400 works flawlessly.

HSMODEM software is very easy to install and can be used without the RSVE board (The software fix for the Atari's RTS CTS problem). There are several different programs that are included in the HSMODEM package, you do not have to use them all, It depends on what modem port you are using. If you are an Express sysop like myself you must be using modem 1. The neccessary programs to use for modem 1 would be DRVIN.PRG, this is the main driver for HSMODEM and must always load before any of the other HSMODEM programs. MFP.PRG, this controls modem port 1. I suggest that you load DRVIN.PRG and MFP.PRG boot from your AUTO folder. Although they can be run from the desktop, make sure that they are the last programs to run, this way any of the other programs that Auto load will not interfere with the changes they make to TOS. I use the To configure these two programs you must run the program SETTER.TTP, and on the command line put the path and filename to either DRVIN.PRG or MFP.PRG. The configurations are built into both these programs and by running SETTER.TTP you are altering the actual program, which is a nice feature, this saves having those configuration files located all over the place. You will be prompted to enter some information when SETTER.TTP is executed this can be a little confusing seeing as most of the text is in German and very little in English.

These are my settings for DRVING.PRG and MFP.PRG:
--------------------------------------------------------------

DRVING.PRG
----------
FASTINIT: Yes
EXOPEN: No

MFP.PRG
-------
RSVE: Yes

I have the RSVE board installed. Answer no if you do not.

HISP: Yes
REPL: place 1: 19200
place 2: 38400

The above replaces bps rates, for example because of the limit in TOS ost older programs will only support rates as high as 19200. Now the oftware will notice the change and adapt 19200 to 38400. This will not work if the RSVE board is not installed, so if this is so answer place 1 and 2 with a U.

Place 3: U
Place 4: U
Place 5: U
Place 6: U
U meaning Invalid or no entry.

DTR: Yes
Enables switching of the DTR lines answering yes keeps it like in TOS.

RBL: 32768
Size in bytes of the recieve buffer.

TBL: 256
Size in bytes of the transmit buffer.

The Size of the above receive and transmit buffers may vary from system to system. For best results play around with these numbers until it works best for you.

English docs are included in HSMODEM, so if you want to experiment with different settings you can, but I found the above best for my system."

Thanks everyone...

I used to have a single chip hack in one of my STFM's years ago and I recall it just did its thing. HSModem works in a similar fashion on the MegaSTE/TT/Falcon. I'm using my MegaSTE with serialdisk @38400. I faffed about with the setter ttp and it didn't seem to make any difference. Might be different on an ST though.

Use serial.cpx, don't use modem.cpx. The only real difference is the baud rates are correct in serial.cpx from what I can see. 110 baud is remapped to 38400 and so on and so forth.

You're not wrong about the documentation.

atari030 wrote: 06 Jan 2023 23:51 I used to have a single chip hack in one of my STFM's years ago and I recall it just did its thing. HSModem works in a similar fashion on the MegaSTE/TT/Falcon. I'm using my MegaSTE with serialdisk @38400. I faffed about with the setter ttp and it didn't seem to make any difference. Might be different on an ST though.

Use serial.cpx, don't use modem.cpx. The only real difference is the baud rates are correct in serial.cpx from what I can see. 110 baud is remapped to 38400 and so on and so forth.

You're not wrong about the documentation.

So with HSModem set to remap 19.2k to 38.4, I should be able to set the SERIAL.CPX to 19.2k, correct?

Thanks.

No, 110 should be 38400. You shouldn't need to change anything. It wipes out the lower less useful baud rates rather than the more useful ones.

Okay, I understand that is the "stock" recommended settings straight from the HSModem documentation.

But the settings I posted in my initial message are from an actual BBS Express! ST SysOp who had the
RSVE board working with Express and an Atari ST. Those are the settings he used successfully. Doing
it the way he did, the baud rate in Express didn't even have to be changed. Picking 19.2 there should
be remapped by HSModem using those settings - anything that is using 19.2 should have it remapped
to 38.4, just like picking 110 with the original settings would remap to 38.4.

Although I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try it out. Tomorrow. It's late and I'm going to bed. :)

Thanks for the help.

So I did get the RSVE mod working at 38.4k. I posted more details in the usual
DarkForce! thread here (and at other forums).

I'm still having one problem though. While everything seems to mostly going
fine at 38.4, when people call in at 19.2k (or less, I'm assuming) downloads
are giving multiple CRC and sub-packet too long errors, followed by a timeout
and the download is cancelled. It's kinda like, between the RSVE mod, HSModem,
and the BBS software that the 19.2k callers are being treated like they are 38.4k
and the downloads are being rammed at them full speed.

HSModem has parameters for receiving and transmission that you can adjust. I
played with them until around 3am this morning and nothing helped. The usual
standard is 256 on each. I'm assuming that transmission is the relevant one here.
I've went as high as 32768 and as low as 32.

So one big question I have is, is this the way it's supposed to work? That once
the RSVE mod is in place, 38.4 is the path with no ability to continue to use the
lower/slower speeds?

If anyone has any advice, insights or even random thoughts on this I'd surely
appreciate it. :)

Thanks.

All I can remember is the mod I did was a single chip 38400 MFP hack and it just worked with HSModem. I never had anyone ring in though, so that is pretty much moot I guess.

atari030 wrote: 09 Jan 2023 22:35 All I can remember is the mod I did was a single chip 38400 MFP hack and it just worked with HSModem. I never had anyone ring in though, so that is pretty much moot I guess.

Yeah, that's the catch. I've used it to call out to some non-Atari BBS's running
at the higher speeds and it's worked fine.

So for a target machine that wouldn't be using it in a BBS environment, it's
gonna do great.

Thanks.