POFO must live forever (1997-8) Hello, my name is Greg Viethen. I´m a practitioner specialized in informatics, owner of an Atari PoFo - and looking for contacts to other PoFo-ist´s. Here now is my pre-christmas short story for you: A couple of months ago I discovered an interesting forum on the internet: Yes, it is this very Atari Portfolio forum I´m talking about. I had never thought to encounter so many active PoFo users as I did. Well, on this occasion I got my "dear old darling" tuned: 512 K main memory, virtual drive B, a few original Atari Cards (20 $ each) werde added as well as a card drive for my PC (45 $). Now I should have been glad - shouldn´t I? But alas - it is not that easy:. 8086-virus stroke me again - aahh... How that? What do I mean? After early experiences durnig the 70s with Zilog chips, solder iron and Z80 assembler I was one of the first who 15 years ago introduced no name-XTs to the German market. I was still a student at that time, trying to earn some money and having fun contemporaneously. I learnt a lot about hardware architecture of XTs and ATs together with 8086/88 assembler. Freaks of those days stuck together in clubs and developed all these beautiful peripheries like frame grabbers, parallel port CNC adaptors, laboratory robots, modems and much more. Shortly before the beginning of the SMD era my enthusiasm was stopped: As I always wanted to develop I had to realise that the computational evolution and more and more perfect design of the computers together with the very short innovation periods made new incentives practically impossible: When we finally had finished the development of a special hardware tool on an AT 80286 basis, 80386 peered around the corner. As market was moving quicker and quicker I decided to become a mere user in 1988. Until few months ago when I - being a doctor it is more than natural for me - vivisectioned my old Atari PoFo. I realised immediately that his ancestors had been the XTs and ATs of the early days - and I got it expanded with memory and and a GoldCap added. This was end of September 96. Since then I have discovered a lot about extensions and enhancement possibilities for the Atari PoFo. Why did I get into it? Oh, because I´m convinced that in order to be professionally used PoFo needs for instance a compatible drive (ancient Floppy ? better ZIP). Next problem: PoFo does not support PCMCIA devices thus being cut off from modern hardware. His "brothers" who have got built-in interfaces (serial and PCMCIA) like HPLX 100 (OmniGo) are sold at only 400 $. This means: Solutions for the PoFo must be definitely cheaper than 250 $ for an old floppy drive technique - a price at which yout already can get a cheap organizer or a used HP palmtop. So I thought: Maybe there are still treasure islands where to buy cheap old PoFo products. That´s why I - and some students of mine - contacted Jim Tittsler, the man who had mainly worked on PoFo periphery at DIP, UK. Two weeks ago we spoke about the bunch of people who still love their PoFos. He admitted that he himself still uses a couple of PoFos. My question concerning the projects in development were also answered: DIP had already finished a PCMCIA interface prototype as well as a subminiature floppy controller and more. He advised me to ask DIP directly whether they could help me with sketches, manuals, references a.s.o. since he had sent all back to England years ago. (So dear PoFo clubs in the world - shouldn´t we try to get into contact with Atari PoFos mother? Who knows, perhaps they will support us. What is your opinion? E-MAIL me!) What I did, too was having a look at the market: I searched standard products at a good price which (hopefully) can be used with PoFos. I found among other useful gadgets a small 2,5" hard disk drive with parallel interface at $210, the wellknown ZIP drive (parallel) at $180 and floppy drives (3,5" and 5 1/4", again both for the parallel port) at $220. That doesn´t sound bad - but there is still a major problem: power. Above named components will hardly work on PoFos three batteries - logical. So they need a power supply or batteries of their own, obviously. Instead there could be at least a better hard disk solution: Did you know that there is a 1.8" hard disk on PCMCIA basis type II? Yes, with a thickness of barely 5.5 millimeters, low power comsumption! It would fit the requests ideally - if PoFo only had that PCMCIA adaptor! Same point as for 28.8 K modems, by the way... And this interface discussion covers only one aspect. If "PoFo culture" wants to survive some (skilled) PoFo users have to find a way how to upgrade PoFo towards a professional level. Now, what is professional? Well, my ideal professional PoFo palmtop should be equipped with: CGA compatible display (320 x 200), backlight good keyboard (PoFo´s is still the best in this category!) weight not over 500 gr batteries which last for weeks - even with a hard disk PCMCIA slot internal serial interface internal parallel interface pen / device interface There are still more possibilities and add-ons to think off - but the following 10-items list is a summary of thoughts and ideas that might be realised: 1. display (80 char/line font), backlight; replacement of display 2. keyboard upgrade (to much distance between the keys, surfaces to small) 3. ZIP-drive add-on / driver 4. 3 1/2"-floppy adaptor (not parallel, but BUS-controlled. BTW: some of the drives can be reduced in weight and dimensions easily by cutting / sawing parts off 5. PCMCIA-II or -III adaptor 6. 2.5" notebook hard disk (parallel) respectively 1.8" subminiature HD (PCMCIA) 7. upgrade 80C86 -> 80C186 ! 8. built-in super interface (all-in-one solution): parallel + serial + I/O ports + .. 9. DOS: optical revision, adaptation to GeoWorks / Gem / Windows 3.1 10. modem-handy adaptor I know that some of these ideas already have been worked on: There is a legendary floppy drive, the prototype of a PCMCIA adaptor was announced (limited to RAM cards, that means at its best revision 1.0 of PCMCIA) a.s.o. There are also serial-parallel adaptors on one card from Poland: Well, if you buy this stuff you spend easily $ 700 to get a professional PoFo - still with the performance of a yesterady´s palmtop. So what to do? Jim Tittsler and I discussed the possibilities and he gave me a good hint: In the end I found a solution - at least in theory. Thus with the modest investment of about $ 200 the following features will be added to the PoFo (and make it become market leader again - haha): 1. serial 2. + parallel 3. + PCMCIA-2.0- interface "on board" 4. quadruple speed: 16 Mhz 5. optional: LCD controler on board for a better display 6. integrated illumination kit (electronic part of it) for display backlight 7. several I/O ports for - well anything: pen, mouse .. or similair devices 8. power control Wow, you think, impossible? Technically not - even a "true" upgrade 80C86 -> 80C186 is possible - performance will be equal to that of a 386 SX (8 Mhz). But the price would be around $ 400 - and someone must be found to write a completely new ROM. Anyway - It depends of the Atari PoFo Union. If they want it ... Until now I gathered a lot of information and material, entire encyclopedias of chip manufacturers have been seen through: Now I posess about 1000 really interesting pages of actual literautre with the needed technical references - my desk is completely covered with sketches, figures, plans ..(typical for the 8086 virus). A team could start an upgrade project with this material - but I on my own cannot do it all: research and pcb and testing and ... Therefore I search skilled people who work on this upgrade idea "just for PoFos sake": work out layouts, "destill" an evaluation board, build a prototype ... Who joins me? Further: We need defect PoFos for training and experiments, layout and technical reference stuff ... Who will help us? I don´t know whether our work will lead to a happy end - maybe PoFo user society will have shrunk within the next - say 6 - months. Difficult to predict if the time is spent well - but we should try. O.K. That´s it for the moment - Hope to hear from you greetings, greg E-Mail: viethen@aol.com