Programmer 7500

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Text File | 1986-12-07 | 23.8 KB | 509 lines

CW is a Morse Code send/receive program designed to run on the IBM PC and it's clones. The program expects to find the Color Graphics Adapter present. It will not function correctly with a Mono board or the EGA. A split screen format is used for the visual interface and on-line help is available to the operator. On-line help is provided by the file HELP.CW. If that file is not on the default drive, the program will still function, but without help. The program is user configurable and creates a file which supports the screen images for subsequent use. The user has the option of changing the operating characteristics and input/output environment recognized by the pro- gram. These may then be saved by CW in a file called INIT.CW, an ASCII file which can be viewed/modified using a word processor. The default character- istics provide for Morse Input and Output on communications port COM1 using the RTS and CTS signal lines. If INIT.CW is not on the default disk then the default values are assumed. CW.COM is a user supported program which may be transferred and/or copied as often as you like. No monetary fees (other than disk copying) may be charged as a part of this service. The program is a product of Dave Freese, W1HKJ c/o Clermont Computer Consultants 29 N Ravenwood Drive Cape May Court House, NJ 08210 (609) 624 0076 The program is written in TURBO (tm) PASCAL and demonstrates how well that particular product allows full use of the PC's hardware. Despite the disparaging reviews from some self proclaimed keepers of the PASCAL standard, this program demonstrates the efficacy of TURBO Pascal. It is not anticipated that the source code for this program will be placed in the public domain. Have fun with CW. If you enjoy using it as much as I enjoyed creating it, you will have a ball. Happy DX and bcnu. 73's Dave W 1 H K J INSTALLATION PROCEDURE Create a bootable disk with CW.COM and HELP.CW installed in the root directory. CW.COM is compatible with ancilliary programs such as SIDEKICK(tm). When used with this and other keyboard enhancement programs special considera- tion must be given to program timing. See the section on calibration for more details. When CW is run for the first time, the Logo, and Help screens are created and stored in a new file called IMAGE.CW. This new file is used on subsequent program executions to speed the screen graphic response time. Press <F10> to review the HELP screen and then <SPACE> followed by <F7> to enter the configuration procedures. CW is distributed with presets for screen colors to suit the authors tastes. Colors may be altered, reviewed and eventually stored in an initialization file called INIT.CW. The internal tone generator is configured to ON by the default configur- ation parameters. Try typing a few lines of text and observe the operation of the type ahead keyboard buffer/display, the character transmit indication and the morse code generated on the internal speaker. PROGRAM TERMINATION The <ctrl>C and <Break> keys are disabled by the program. The program is exited by the use of the <alt><F10> keystroke combination. This allows a graceful termination of any open files in use by the program. DIRECTORY ACCESS Whenever a file access is required by the program, the operator may be prompted to enter a file name. The prompt may include a default response. The operator will also have the choice of using the <Ctrl>F, ^F, key sequence to access the disk directory. The directory access is provided by a window over- lay with an additional prompt for the directory mask. This mask may use the usual wildcards and/or directory structure allowed under DOS. A <Retrn> will produce the same result as the *.* wildcard specification. MESSAGE BUFFERS <F1> - Transmitting a Message Buffer CW maintains 10 message buffers (0..9) which may be transmitted by press- ing <F1># where # is 0..9 . The <F1># sequence may be pressed at any time which automatically inserts the specified message buffer into the outgoing character buffer. <F2> - Modifying the Message Buffers The contents of the ten message buffers may be observed and modified by pressing <F2>. The ten message buffers are displayed on a full screen and the operator prompted to enter a number (0..9) to modify a buffer, or <ESC> to return to the split screen display. If a buffer is selected the buffer is cleared and the cursor placed at the beginning of the buffer line. Up to 80 characters may be put in each buffer. <alt><F1> - Loading the Message Buffers The 10 message buffers may be loaded from disk. This is accomplished by pressing <alt><F1>. The operator is prompted to enter a valid directory-tree filename which will contain the desired message buffers. This file is an ASCII file containing 10 lines of up to 80 characters per line. They may be created using CW or a separate word processor program. <alt><F2> - Saving the Message Buffers The present message buffer contents may be assigned to a disk file of the operators choice by pressing <alt><F2>. The operator is prompted to enter a directory-tree filename for storage. Existing files will be overwritten by this function. ASCII TRANSMIT/RECEIVE FILES <F3> - ASCII File Transmit Function Any valid ASCII file may be transmitted by pressing <F3>. The operator is prompted to enter the file name (directory modifiers are ok). If the file is not found the operator is returned to the split screen display. If found, transmission begins immediately with character display in the transmit window. CR/LF and other non-Morse-characters are translated to a SPACE for the pur- poses of generating a correct timing duration. Transmission may be altered with the ^P or ^X keys, causing a pause of termination respectively. If this key is accidently pressed, respond to the file name prompt with a <RETN>. The file may contain control fields which alter several aspects of the code transmission. A control field is generated by the backslash character as at the beginning of the first three lines. A space followed by any ASCII char- acters is treated as a comment field which is skipped over during transmission. A backslash in column one followed by a control character and/or control values will cause the transmission characteristic to change as follows: Control sequence Effect \*ascii text ascii text dislayed on line 24 of display \#nnn wpm rate changed to nnn (integer value) \Dff.f dash-dot-ratio changed to ff.f (float value) \dff.f " " " " " " " " \Lff.f letter-dot-ratio changed to ff.f \lff.f " " " " " " \Wff.f word-dot-ratio changed to ff.f \wff.f " " " " " " See the file CODETEST for examples of each of the above. <alt><F3> - ASCII Receive File Save Function The program maintains a receive buffer of 8192 bytes which acts as a first-in/first-out wrap around memory. The operator may save the contents of this buffer from its beginning up to the last character received. Pressing the <alt><F3> function key will cause an operator prompt for a filename in which to save the receive buffer. If this key is accidently pressed, respond to the filename prompt with a <RETN>. AUTOMATIC LOG MAINTENANCE <F4> - Log Data Entry CW maintains the file LOG.CW, an ASCII data file containing a log of QSO activity. Data may be entered in the log by pressing <F4>. The operator is prompted to enter the data for the log in the following sequence: Date ..............xxxxxxxx Time ..............xxxxx Freq ..............xxxxxx Power .............xxx Outgoing RST ......xxx Incoming RST ......xxx Call sign worked ..xxxxxxxx Comments [name, etc] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Default values may be obtained by pressing <RETN> alone. This is partic- ularly useful for the TIME and DATE values which are the MS-DOS values corr- ected to UTC. All other defaults are blank filled strings. Each composite of log data forms a single line in the file LOG.CW which may be subsequently altered with a word processor such as SideKick, Wordstar or Brief. <alt><F4> - Saving the LOG The file LOG.CW may be updated manually by pressing the <alt><F4> function key. Log entries made during normal operation will be automatically saved at the end of the operating session, or when 100 QSO's have been logged, which- ever comes first. TRANSMIT/RECEIVE CHARACTER RATES <F5> - Set Receive Code Speed = Transmit Code Speed During CW reception the program maintains an estimate of the incoming code speed. First order difference equations are used to filter and smoothly track changes in the detected speed. During high noise bursts or for rapid changes in received CW speed it may become necessary to reset the receive tracking values. Use this function key to set the current Receive Tracking Speed equal to the current Transmit Speed. <alt><F5> - Set Transmit Code Speed = Receive Code Speed During contests and other rapid CW exchanges it is considered good oper- ating to transmit at the receive code speed. Pressing <alt><F5> will immed- iately force the transmit code speed to the received code speed. <F6> - Adjusting Transmit Code Speed The transmitted code speed may be adjusted in 1 WPM increments. Pressing <F6> causes an operator prompt for the new value on the status line. Entries must be digits 0 ... 9, improper entries will be rejected and the prompt re- issued. <alt><F6> - Calibrating the Code Speed The transmit and receive code speeds are dependent on timing loops used in TURBO (tm) PASCAL. They are therefore sensitive to the clock rate of the computer. CW can accomodate variations in clock frequencies. Accurate timing does require a scope and an external 10 HZ signal generator. The signal gen- erator may be a calibrated keyer. To begin the calibration press <alt><F6> and select the transmit or re- ceive procedure. RECEIVE CALIBRATION - Apply a 10 Hz square wave of the proper amplitude to the input port. The 10 Hz square wave is the dot rate equivalent of 25 WPM cw. Pressing the <u> and <d> keys will alter the displayed code speed in 0.1 WPM increments. Pressing <U> and <D> will alter displayed code speed in 1.0 WPM increments. Press <Q> when the calibration is complete. TRANSMIT CALIBRATION - A nominal 10 Hz square is generated at the output port. Adjust this signal for proper frequency by pressing the <u/U> and/or <d/D> keys for the 10 Hz output. Press <Q> when the calibration is complete. ALTERNATE CALIBRATION PROCEDURES - The program may be calibrated by 'ear' and a watch with a sweep second hand. The ASCII file 'PARIS' contains a seq- uence of 100 occurences of 'paris '. This is one of the standard timing words for text timing as specified in the 1985 issue of the ARRL Handbook. Proceed as follows: <1> Clear the Screen, <2> Select transmit code speed to be 25 WPM, <3> Select <F3> (transmit file), <4> Specify file name of PARIS -- do not press <RETN>, <5> Press <RETN> - start timing at the first 'p', <6> At the end of the timed minute press ^X to stop transmission. Count the number of words 'paris' on the screen. It should be 25. If it is not the file INIT.CW can be modified in the Timing Duration entry. The new entry can be calculated as: new = old * #words / 25 That completes the transmit calibration. You now need to calibrate an external keyer to 25 wpm. Some amount of simple hardware will be re- quired, the purpose of which is to allow both the computer output and the keyer to simultaneously key an external oscillator. The external keyer speed is then adjusted for a zero beat note between the two keying sources. Use this calibrated keyer as the input as described in the pri- mary receive calibration procedure. ALTERNATE RECEIVE CALIBRATION - Beginning with version 3.12 of CW a fea- ture has been added which is not documented on the help screen. By press- ing the <ALT> <d> combination a continuous readout of receive tracking filter value (count) is displayed on the 24th line. During the reception of a known morse rate - such as W1AW code practice or bulletin - this value will be fairly constant. The Rx Coefficient written in the file INIT.CW is equal to count * WPM. Try modifying the Rx Coefficient accord- ingly and observe the result. Pressing <ALT><d> will toggle the 24th line display. SOFTWARE/HARDWARE CONFIGURATION <F7> - Modifying Configuration The operator may modify the characteristics of the program with respect to the transmit code weight, initialization values, internal tone, and screen colors. Input/output port assignments and logical levels may be changed. The designation of time zone for the purposes of timekeeping and logging is avail- able. A previous configuration saved on disk may be loaded for quick changes in operating characterics. TRANSMIT WEIGHTING - The operator may select transmit code weighting to fit his or her individual requirements. A prompt for the following charac- teristics is presented: Dash/Dot (3.00) ..... Letter/Dot (3.00) ... Word/Dot (7.00) ..... where the values in parenthesis are the present values. Pressing return at any one of the three leaves the value unchanged. Here are some suggestions for transmit weighting and its intended use. Dash/Dot Letter/Dot Word/Dot Used for: 3.00 3.00 7.00 Standard code weighting 3.60 3.60 8.00 Moderately heavy code good for QRN conditions 3.00 10.00 30.00 Practice at 1/2 WPM rate 3.00 17.00 51.00 Practice at 1/3 WPM rate 3.00 24.00 73.00 Practice at 1/4 WPM rate SET INTERNAL TONE - The internal cw tones may be toggled ON/OFF and the frequency of the tone modified. If the 'y' response is made to the prompt: PC tone on? <Y/N>'); then the operator is requested to enter the desired tone: Note frequency = 600 change to .... Pressing <RETN> leaves the frequency unchanged. SPECIFYING DEFAULT MESSAGE FILE - The operator may specify the start-up messages which will be loaded on each execution of CW. The response to the prompt: Enter message file name.ext ... should be an existing \directory\filename.ext string, where the directory is optional. SPECIFYING TIME ZONE - The program default for time zone is 0. That is, you live in Greenwich, England. Since most of us are not so fortunate, and good log keeping stipulates using UTC (GMT for us oldtimers), the operator can specify his or her own time zone as: Enter your time zone ... If a non-zero time zone is entered, the program adjusts the date and time for the on screen display and the log to accomodate the time zone. Proper attention is also made to month and year rollover with the exception of leap year. This is a subject of a future change to the program. CONTROLLING HARDWARE INTERFACE - CW may be configured to access any port within the 8088 port address space. The individual bit and its logical sense can also be specified. The program default values are for the COM1 port and uses the RTS, CTS signals for Transmit and Receive respectively. The operator will be prompted: Enter transmit port (1020)... transmit bit # (1)..... transmit logic (1) .... receive port (1022).... receive bit # (4)...... receive logic (1) ..... The values in parenthesis are the present in use, a <RETN> leaves the value unchanged. You must enter the port numbers in decimal, the bit number as 0..7, and the logic level as 1 => active high; 0 => active low. This may take some experimenting for your particular hardware. The author has configured a VISUAL COMMUTER (IBM clone) and the MFJ 1224, RTTY/CW terminal unit to the LPT1 parallel port and a homebrew interface to the COM1 port. The homebrew design is the subject of a forthcoming public domain release. CHANGING RECEIVE FILTERING - The program is designed to track the charac- ter rate of the incoming (received) morse code. Under ideal conditions, no filtering is required at all, however, in the real world of QRN and QRM it is an absolute necessity. The filtering is accomplished using the digital equiv- alent of a low pass filter. Just as the response of a low pass RC filter can be controlled by the resistor-capacitor product, the difference equation coefficients can be modified to adjust it's response. The operator is prompt- ed as follows: Receive filter coeff: 3 slow ... fast <0> .. <9> Enter ... Selecting the value <0> will disable the filter. In this case the receive algorithm will rely on the transmit WPM selection. The receive tracking can be reset with the <F5> key. This is particularly useful under extremely noisy conditions or when the incoming code is a known speed, such as W1AW bulletins. The default value is 3 which seems to work well with the author's Kenwood 599D receiver with an 800 Hz CW filter. A 200 Hz wide active audio filter is also used along with a limiter/detector of the author's own design. This is definitely an area for experimentation and user feedback. I simply cannot afford to buy one of everything to test the programs utility. LOADING CONFIGURATION - The operator is prompted to enter the name of a configuration file which is to be loaded. If the file does not exist or the <RETN> is pressed with out a file name then the default configuration is established. SAVING CONFIGURATION - The operator has the option of saving the operating configuration of the program on a disk file. The prompt for a file name may be given a <RETN> response in which case the default name of 'INIT.CW' is assumed. The operating characteristics of CW as determined by the configuration parameters can be saved on the default disk. The program looks for this file on initial execution and uses the values contained therein for its presets. INIT.CW is an ASCII file which may be observed/changed with any wordprocessor. A sample of the INIT.CW file contents are: Xmt_WPM ............ 18 Dash Dot Ratio ..... 3.0 Letter Dot Ratio ... 3.0 Word Dot Ratio ..... 7.0 PC monitor flag .... 1 Monitor note freq .. 600 Time Zone .......... 0 Initial msg file ...NIL Timing Duration .... 920 Rx Coefficient .....8250 Xmt background ..... 7 Xmt foreground ..... 14 Rcv background ..... 3 Rcv foreground ..... 15 Status background .. 4 Status foreground .. 11 Prompt background .. 1 Prompt foreground .. 14 Aux background ..... 6 Aux foreground ..... 14 Help background .... 2 Help foreground .... 14 Transmit port ......1020 Transmit bit ....... 2 Transmit level ..... 1 Receive port .......1022 Receive bit ........ 16 Receive level ...... 1 Filter coefficient.. 5 The above values are the equivalent to the internal program configuration defaults. SPECIAL NOTE FOR USE WITH SIDEKICK - I have always used the program with the utility SIDEKICK. Some early feedback on program operation indicated that my machine was slower than I wanted to believe. It seems that SIDEKICK really makes a significant impact on program speed such as CW which uses a lot of key- board i/o. All of the timing loops involved in generation and reception of the morse characters have i/o tests imbedded in them. These i/o calls to DOS are trapped by SIDEKICK. The number of tests SIDEKICK performs is apparently not trivial. My computer is a VISUAL COMMUTER with a V20 operating at 4.77 MHz. The Norton Utility SYSINFO indicates a 1.8 performance index. This computer requires the following constants in the INIT file: constant w/o SK w SK Timing Duration 920 850 Rx Coefficient 8250 5660 If you use SIDEKICK or other keyboard enhancement utility with CW, you may find it necessary to play around a little to find the right values for these two constants. TUNING & OTHER STUFF <F8> - Tune the Transmitter Pressing the <F8> function key causes the transmitter to be held in the key down condition. The key down condition is released when any other key is pressed. I suggest the <SPACE> to prevent on the air burbles - hi. <alt><F8> - Send V's The character V is used as a standard "test" signal by most CW operators. The <alt><F8> key causes a string of V's to be transmitted. Pressing any key will terminate the sequence of V-s. The <SPACE> is also appropriate here. <F9> - Clearing the Screen The split screen display is cleared of all text, the colors reset, and the status line refreshed when the <F9> function key is pressed. <alt><F9> - Reset Receive Buffer Pointer Clears the screen the same as <F9>, but additionally resets the receive buffer to begin loading characters at the beginning. Useful for initializing the buffer during incoming traffic or bulletins. <F10> - H E L P !!! On line help is available and obtained by pressing <F10>. A command synopsis is displayed. Pressing any function-key or alt-function-key sequence will display the appropriate portion of the HELP.CW file in a central screen window. If the file HELP.CW is not on the default drive, no action is taken.