[NTLK] PCMCIA for the brave...

[Matthias Melcher]

LOL!


> On 14. Aug 2025, at 08:22, DoctorClu via NewtonTalk <newtontalk at newtontalk.net> wrote:
> 
> Rise oh thread from 2021.... rise!!!   Mohahahahah!!!  (lightning strikes, thunder crackles !!!)
> 
> 
> Hey all, I found this awesome thread about porting PCMCIA cards and the rom cards like Columbo's Mystery, Motile, Forbes.   How has this developed since 2021?

I had somewhat of a break after that mail and have not developed anything any further. I tried this on one Flash RAM card and it worked great. I was able to make it into the .pcmci file format that I invented back then, and I can use the card copy with Einstein, reading, writing, eject, insert, etc. . I did not try to port any other cards, nor did I ever write the Newton side of the software that would allow easy download.

> Also (Matthias) I would like to try my hand at porting some cards.  Where can I find the "Hammer" and its companion package "Debug Connection" mentioned in the message below?

Hammer is a Classi Mac OS app, just like NTK and NCU. If you get the Disk images from Unna and install them on Basilisk II, you get a nice Apple Macintosh II with Mac OS 7.5.5 and all the Newton developer tools you would ever wish for.

If you manage to set up the serial port correctly, you can link NCU inside BasiliskII with a physical MessagePad, like it's 1996. I found that loudly singing the "Macarena" while trying to get this to run helps a lot.

One of the tools is "Hammer". It's an incredible debugger for everything Netwon. You can single-step through machine code, find all the routines and trace them, and trace NewtonScript as well. It can also access any memory location and download the data there into a file.

NewtonOS likes to preserve power wherever possible. So when you insert your PCMCIA card, you have a few seconds where NewtonOS recognizes the card and gives full access to it. If you connect Hammer at that point in time, you can download the eintire contents of the card including the descriptor. If you miss that point, NewtonOS turns power to the card off, and all you get is garbage or "FF". Luckily you can check that before downloading 8MB of data for hours.

> I currently have, thanks to a generous member on this list, a copy of Motile and Columbo Mystery that I would like to help port and make available to the Newton Community.

That would be really nice to have as a .pcmcia file, so it runs one Einstein!

Thanks for your efforts. I am busy for the rest of the month, but happy to help starting September, including via Telco.

 - Matthias