this is some "I have no mouth and I must scream" bullshit.
I have a portable DOS device, which appears to have no :/; key. I'm at a command prompt.
It's showing D:\>
What's on C:? I have no way to know!
ahh, the reboot command is to power it off and hold A+B+D and hit power on.
Sensible. it's basically ctrl-alt-delete.
this is what the keyboard looks like, btw.
wait
so supposedly I can use shift+func+x to get a colon, according to the manual.
that doesn't work, but it seems to be because my keyboard is missing a trigger key. there's supposed to be side buttons which give me an "alpha" key, which acts like shift on traditional keyboards.
but I don't have one connected right now, and the key labeled shift is acting like a shift key!
I AM READING THE MANUAL NOW AND IT'S JUST MAKING ME MORE CONFUSED
okay there's some "selectable by the operator" stuff here which is making me think this thing can be reprogrammed to act differently.
and I think they reprogrammed the colon key right off the keyboard
anyway this is a Symbol PDT 3142 mobile handheld computer. It's got a barcode scanner, 46 keys, 8-line LCD display, and it's a DOS PC.
YES REALLY
So it's powered by an NEC V25 8088-compatible microcontroller, running at 8mhz.
This version has 640kb of RAM. Aside from the barcode scanner, it's also got 802.11b wifi (ON DOS), and runs off an 800mAh battery which last a "full shift" (no numbers)
There's a dock that gives you either rs232 serial, a modem, or a DB25 parallel port.
It runs DR DOS 3.41 from 1988.
So, fun fact about this unit:
It's from 2002.
but yeah this is just DOS. there's files and shit and you can change directories and IN THEORY DRIVES, IF I COULD TYPE A FUCKING COLON
So while originally opening it up, I saw this. This actually has two add-ons connected to the main board
So this add-on seems to add RAM or flash, and a sort of PCMCIA-slot, which contains a WIFI card.
And the barcode scanner connects using a 10-pin flat-flex cable. I'm guessing this is just a serial port of some kind, with some extra power.
So here's the main motherboard of it.
The main CPU here is an NEC µPD70320GJ-8.
That's basically just an 8088 as a microcontroller. It's got an 8-bit external bus, but it's a 16-bit CPU and a bunch of support stuff is built in: clocks, DMA, DRAM controller, interrupt controllers, serial support.
This chip on the left is an Intel 28F020 flash chip. 256 kilobytes of storage.
The other chip is an Intel N28F010 flash chip: 128 kilobytes of storage.
And a Hynix HY628400A SRAM chip: 512 kilobytes.
The other side of the board has a few chips under the LCD.
A CY62128BLL-70 SRAM chip, 128 kilobytes.
So that's the rest of the 640kb.
This is a CDP68HC68T1 chip, which is a real-time clock and basic CMOS storage. 32 entire bytes of storage!
And a big STI 13130-018, F0202D365.
I'm able to confirm this is a chip. Other than that, no info.
I suspect this is just a bunch of glue logic/chipset stuff in a custom ASIC.
The LCD is an off-the-shelf Hyundai module.
HB12625NG-EWF-01. I couldn't find a datasheet or even specs, but according to a polish forum, this display acts like an 8x20 character LCD, but is actually a 120x64 monochrome display, but it's driven by a controller that can only do 60x64 pixels.
So there's actually two LCD controllers on here, with each controlling one half of the LCD!
There's a MAX636 voltage regulator on the LCD side too, which is apparently providing voltage for the LCD, which needs some weird voltages according to that polish post:
https://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/topic1440729.html
And I didn't do a good job of photographing it but there's a soldered-in battery. This is probably for keeping the RTC clock running while you're swapping batteries.
So that add-on board calls itself a 60-41088-01 Rev A, by STI copyright 2000.
So it's got two of these Hyundai HY29F040AT-90 flash chips. 512 kilobytes each, so there's an extra megabyte of storage on this board.
And four of of these SNx4AHC244 with a SN74HCT245. Those are all octal bus transceivers/drivers, so they're probably buffering the connection to the PCMCIA chip?
and a Symbol Tech Altair 51-23130-045. No results. That's a custom ASIC.
That connected PCMCIA card is an LA-3024-503-1C. That seems to be a Symbol-specific model.
The FCC ID is H9PLA3021-500, which brings up a "WLAN PC Card".
so getting data on or off of this thing is going to be tricky. I don't have the docks for serial ports or modems, and I don't think I can configure it to connect over WIFI.
MAYBE it'll support other PCMCIA cards, and I can just plug in a linear-flash card? or SRAM, or CF adapter? I don't know if it has the needed drivers for that.
BTW if you want to power it manually (like if you have a dead battery, as I do) you can power it through this header here.
also I figured out how to hold alt: it's function + control.
and you can't use alt-codes to type a colon.
also the manual and the keyboard screen suggests that this unit has a backlight, but it seems to be dead on my unit.
maybe I can make a barcode for : and scan it
oh hey the manual has a pinout for the RJ41 port on the bottom. I can built my own adapter for it and get serial!
oh hey you can flash files to it with a TFTP server connected over wifi.
again, this is an 8088 running DOS.
fucking weird.
I got it into self-test mode to let me change the clock.
it's weird, because you can't use the numbers on the keyboard, you gotta use the arrows. all four of them, and remember two of them are function-up/function/down.
also, you can set it to times like 14:95
wait
what is this final digit.
What kind of a date is 12-12-2022-0?
WHAT KIND OF DOCTOR WHO BULLSHIT IS THIS?
also I rebooted it after looking in the config menus, don't think I changed anything, but it unzipped some files?
I think this thing has a ram disk, and it's saving space by storing datafiles in flash as zipfiles, which it uncompresses into RAM when you boot it.
also I checked the PATH: it's set to B:;A:;E:
I'm on D:
so how many drives does this thing have?!
wish I had a DR-DOS 3.41 manual handy
so I've got the usual DOS commands: copy, mkdir, cd, type, copy.
I don't have an edit or a debug.
so I think it's just got the commands built into the DR-DOS 3.41 command.com.
I don't know what those are, because of the lack of manuals
okay as of DR DOS 6.0 the internal commands are these:
so I have a file with "D:\X" in it. I'm wondering if I can somehow remove text from it and make it into a patch file, then run it. like if I could get a BAT file saying "C:" I could run it, right?
okay "COPY CON" didn't work (the file got gibberish in it) but "echo dir >q.bat" did work, I so I can make batch files and they do work. but I don't know if I can edit them, really.
I got it! shift-func o gives me a colon, IF I get a smaller F and underline when I press func.
really annoying to trying to DIR files when they scroll really fast and "MORE" doesn't work properly.
wait, maybe if I switch back to D:... I forgot DOS makes temp files
NOPE
okay there's a 58072 byte "_files.zip" with a datecode of 10/20/2004 on B:
making a serial port adapter is gonna be tricky.
RJ41 10-pin connectors are not easy to find. most shops assume you typed it wrong and give you RJ45 instead
ordered an adapter from ebay
found some drivers/tools:
https://www.barcode4less-usa.com/barcode/resources/symbol_software.htm
So there was an SDK/ADK available, called "Series 3000 Application Developer Kit (v3.5)". unfortunately, Symbol doesn't exist anymore. So all the links are dead.
the manual for the wifi adapter is on FCC.report.
amusingly it has a laser safety warning.
I'm sure that's just because they copy/pasted the warnings from the main manual, but I'm just amused by the idea of LASER WIFI
