Re: Thanks for the help so far

Hi Christian,

Christian R. Larsen schrieb:
"Wolfgang Moser" wrote:

It took me quite a few read-throughs to understand the point of chapter 3 in the XCtest doc.
Which point?

Basically, I had a hard time understanding the point of the first two test groups and I'm in fact still not sure I tested everything in the way I was supposed to, though your answers suggest I got it right to a large degree.

Besides, it's pretty hard to read from the document how to interpret the test results the tests described under group 1 and 2 produce.

I fear this is intentional. The tool XCTest should
mainly help us, Joe, Nicolas, me and some other cable
experienced people to give support advice to users
like you.

It is incredibly important does not get biased either
by the tool itself or its documentation. At least it
is my intention that the documentation does not tell
too much about how to inteprete the results.

As a supporter I need to know about unbiased facts:
if the cable configuration is set to a), the output
configuration is set to b) and then signal c) is set
to level d), what does which input line do then?

Otherwise many people would tend to tell me
something about "the test with 'toggling the lines'
does not show the expected behavior". I then would
have to ask: "which test exactly, there are several
one that toggle a line", "what is the exact behavior
shown" and so on.


Often you need a deep understanding of the concrete
construction of each of the X cables, a very deep
understanding of the input and output circuitry of
the 1541 disk drive and its exact behavior on
certain signal state changes and a fairly deep
understanding about general TTL/CMOS driver
technologies, namely Open-Collector/Open-Drain vs.
Totem-Pole output circuitry to get a feeling about
potential compatibility issues between certain LPT
port hardware implementations and the X cable used.

While with one cable type some shown misbehavior
may be problematic, with another cable type it may
not (as long as this assumption is supported by
some of the other test groups).

Group 3 makes more sense since it states that if any of the first four tests fail, then something's wrong.

Yeah, but especially the tests of group 3 wouldn't
have helped Joe or me to identity that your cable
has got a problem with the CLOCK line. This
assumption could only be made by combining the
results from test group 3 (and knowing about the
inner workings of the 1541) with the ones from
groups 1 and 2.

Take note also, that the results from group 2
_may_ be different on certain LPT hardware
implementations. At least I can think of
constellations, where the input values do not
follow their output settings. If this is the
same for all lines then it might be no problem,
if other test results support this assumption.

A nice feature in the software or documentation would be moving it besides the point of stating that "something" is wrong and into a more trouble solving oriented mode. In my case, certain conclucions are more likely than others.

Of course I understand your point. You would
like to see a machine that is able to tell
you what to do to fix your problem. I'm very
sorry that I don't feel able to program such
a "master tool". I won't say that it would
be impossible, but for sure it would be a
lot of work.

And then take into account that I never
experienced any two support tasks that ended
with the same bug resolution. With one
exception: In the last 3 years many people
suffered from incompatibilities of their
LPT port hardware with the XM1541 and XE1541
cable and had to replace it with the XA1541.

To get an impression about _how_ different
our support task may end, have a look here:

http://wiki.trikaliotis.net/bin/view/OpenCBM/OpenCbmAcknowledgedCableIncompatibilities

There I document acknowledged
incompatibilities between mainboard types
and cable types. Mainly it was intended for
XA1541 incompatibilities, but I'm using it
now for all cables that are supported by
OpenCBM.


By the way - The helpful people at NKC electronics promised to send me a new adaptor free of charge so Iøm hoping to get things working soon.

Please don't forget to report here, when
you got some positive result from the
replacement. You will be added to the
documentation page above ;-)


Womo
.

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