ECOTRX.EXE release 1.0 30.06.1999
Ecolink Transmit and Receive.

You will need a computer fitted with an Acorn 6512 Ecolink card to be able to run this program.
The card will also need to be configured for memory D0000-D7FFF and IRQ 7, otherwise you will have to change the program and re-compile. The memory address is hard coded in initcard.c : SetupEcolinkRAMSelector and the IRQ is defined in ecotrx.h CARD_INTERRUPT. Note: CARD_ADDRESS has no effect.

The program is to demonstrate programming the Acorn 6512 based Ecolink card without using the original driver set.

The program is in C and was compiled with djgpp - the DOS port of the GNU compiler. I did start this program in 16bit C. This was changed to djgpp to enable a future port to linux to be made with as little difficulty as possible. Consequently to run this program a DPMI server will have to be installed when running in DOS. CWSDPMI is highly recommended and is included in this zip. Just run it from your autoexec.bat

There are basically 3 parts to the source code:

Card Initialisation. Functions and routines needed to initalise and boot the card.
initcard.c
initcard.h 
6512code.h - the 6512 microcode and a partially commented diassembly

Card Communication. Functions and routines to communicate with the Ecolink card.
ecolink.c
ecolink.h - ecolink specific constants
econet.h  - econet  specific constants

Demo Program.
ecotrx.c
ecotrx.h
This is the demo program to demonstrate the use of the intialising and implementation of the Ecolink card.
In the Advanced Econet User Guide http://members.magnet.at/marku/bbc.htm there are two programs listed for the BBC computer. One is transmit key presses to another station - the other is receive key presses from a station and play a corresponding note.
This program demonstrates this on the PC enabling the user to press a key on the PC and with the receive program running on the BBC, a sound will be heard. Also the PC can receive a key transmitted from the BBC, and play a note accordingly.

The program should be started with either:
ecotrx /r  - for receive mode
ecotrx /t  - for transmit mode

This code will also work running in a Win9x DOS session, but not under WinNT/2000 - that is the next stage - to implement a WDM driver for Win2000.

If you find any bugs or problems with the code then please mail me and let me know so I can fix them.

I must also thank a few people for helping me out at various stages with various bits of information.
Stuart McConnachie
Alan Williams
Andrew Gordon
Philip Blundell
and Mike Harrison who sold me the card in the first place.

Many thanks to you all, without you none of this would have been possible.


Mark Usher
marku@magnet.at