🇺🇸 Commodore VIC-20 Satellite Tracking: Part 1 (Quick Look) [TCE
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 มิ.ย. 2024
- Thought this was interesting - couldn't find much information about it. The software is called VICTRAK+ by a company called "Spectrum West" and the hardware is called AUTOTRAK V20 (for VIC-20).
The software is designed to let you track satellites and predict where they will be at a future date.
The hardware, I believe, is designed to move an antenna automatically to point at the satellite using software called AUTOROTOR ... that's my guess anyway.
It has four LEDs labelled:
CCW (counter clockwise)
CW (clockwise)
DN (down)
UP (duh)
It has also four trimpots labelled 1 to 4 ... to adjust the slew speed of each direction motor?
I wasn't able to load the VICTRAK tape using a Commodore Datasette so have digitised both sides and uploaded to my Github here:
github.com/0ddjob/Commodore_V...
Further investigation to come. - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
![🇺🇸 Commodore VIC-20 Satellite Tracking: Part 2 (Loading The Software) [TCE #0479]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VWe1RY4y2Tk/mqdefault.jpg)
![🇺🇸 Commodore VIC-20 Satellite Tracking: Part 2 (Loading The Software) [TCE #0479]](/img/tr.png)
Thanks for the video. That is a most interesting peripheral, a very early computer driver rotator controller for an azimuth/elevation satellite antennas. When I got my amateur radio license in 1990 there were enough lower earth orbit amateur satellites that you could get away with a simpler stationary antenna (you still needed to correct your frequency for Doppler shift as the satellite approached and departed).
I seen the words "VIC-20 & Satellite Tracking" and clicked Subscribed.
The pressure is now on to get the software working!
Pretty neat right there. I've got to catch up on my Clueless engineer video backlog again!
Impressive
4:56 making copies you could use a dual tape deck :)
The program actually lets you make a copy of itself ... "only for backup, not for your friends!" ... I do actually have a couple dual-deck, component cassette recorders. I ended up digitising the tape ... there's definitely data there ... no idea why my Datasette couldn't read it ...
nice and simple motor driver board... it really shouldnt be too hard to send stuff to it with a little fiddling!...
....this made me wonder what hardware was used on the old vic20 and commodore64s that were used to control the Slotcar tracks (them big 8 lane things)...i wonder if youve seen any on your travels?!
The user port on vic 20 and c64 were pretty much used like the gpio on pi’s and what nots.. :) even from basic
There's probably some old Ham who has this software.
Well they better not ham it up and upload said software somewhere so humans can still do neat things with it!
My first though for that amount of blackening in the corner of the case would be indicative of someone plugging in a C8 mains flex maybe 😅
Ahh, possible. I thought maybe power from the antenna board may have fed back through … but, yes, someone may have connected it to the mains at some stage
Nice find!
Totally unrelated: What was the name of that spider that was hanging around?
That'd be Hanuš ... haven't seen it for a while, but it'll be lurking somewhere
www.cbr.com/spaceman-hanus-spider-explained/
@@Brfff oh thats where the name came from!... watch that movie a few months ago...weird AF!
I have to get the caps changed in my Vic 20, they are not fat but I would feel easier if they were changed out, I changed out the ones on the boards of my Research Machines 380Z, the very machine from my school that I learned to program on.
Are there any modems that can be modded to work with the Vic 20?
I have quite a few 56K modems lying around.
The 380Z looks like an interesting machine! I'd not heard of those before! For modems, generally they connect via a V24/RS232 serial port ... so you could either get a VIC-20 modem that connects via the expansion port (like the one I've got ... and don't need) or you could get an RS-232 interface for the VIC and connect a standard modem via that ... but just a guess! In video TCE #0207 I look at the VIC-1011A RS232 interface.
th-cam.com/video/pblPd9c0XNM/w-d-xo.html
@@Brfff Yeah the 380Z was the choice of most UK schools before the BBC was launched, my school went with this computer but bought BBC models when they launched, however, our teacher preferred that we learn using CP/M as that is what we would most likely be using should we use computers in our careers and so we were taught on both machines.
I was the chairman of the computer club and we raised money to by a colour card for our 380Z, on the documentation booklet for the card a print which basically said the card was purchased by the computer club and the names of the committee members was slid into the clear wallet that contained the book.
Around 1994 the caretaker was doing a clearout and came across the 380Z and the documentation was on top, I bumped into Colin the caretaker in the village pub one night and he mentioned that he had seen my name on the print (he always called me Mr Chairman after this), he was going to dump the 380Z but I asked if I could have it and he dropped the whole lot off a few days later.
It would serve you well to edit a lot more and cut out dead audio. I've had to skip through a lot just to get to the actual content. Please look into that.
Thanks, I do appreciate feedback. I thought there wasn't much dead air (compared to my very early videos two years ago), but will keep it in mind!
@@Brfff Well I'm paraphrasing when I say dead air. I don't necessarily mean it literally. I suppose more prune the parts that aren't really adding to the "story" you're trying to tell or something like that. I saw that you did edits later in the video (after I left my comment, hehe), but I'm more just trying to recommend you keep tuning it. Definitely not saying cut out stuff that adds to the story, but do try to avoid "losing the audience" so to say. Not so easy to say succinctly ;P Keep at it! \o/