Hey there,
I'm looking for assistance on configuring a terminal emulator on Linux for use with the Altair Clone, if anyone out there has recommendations. For background, I have the Audio Cassette interface installed into the Altair, and I am using the DB-25M to DB-9F adapter chained to the USB to DB-9 Serial Port Adapter available from the Altair Clone website to connect from the serial port provided by the Audio Cassette interface, to a USB port on my laptop running Linux.
After entering the first stage bootloader program from the support video in the second link below, I found the first link below on the downloads of the Altair Clone site, which provides a command for GNU Screen to connect to the Altair. I sent the 8k basic v4 file provided on the Altair Clone site Downloads using exec !! sx -a filename, which prompted for an XMODEM receive command, and "exec !! rx -a filename". Ultimately, this results in a timeout on my end, without any indication of the file transfer completing. The same link provides an alternative command to send files "exec !! cat filename", which when used after the initial screen command, had the effect of turning on all the address lights on the Altair, but not in the pattern recognizable in the support video as the second stage bootloader.
I also tried sending the basic program using the minicom program, over XMODEM, connecting to /dev/ttyUSB0, sending the basic program, then opening another instance of minicom in a different window, and issuing the receive command on the same file. Frankly, I've never used screen or minicom in this way, so I'm not very familiar with the procedure, or whether something I'm trying is obviously the wrong way. If you connect to the Altair using a terminal emulator on Linux or could point to the correct procedure, I'd love to hear about it.
1. Using “screen” as terminal emulator under UNIX/LINUX https://altairclone.com/downloads/Using%20SCREEN%20as%20terminal%20emulator.pdf
2. Loading 8K BASIC from a Cassette Image https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-dFKNYFL0M