Looking to track down the programming SW for Saber (not Astro Saber--I have that) Have acquired some for the collection and I like to make them semi useful and enjoy the learning experience. Have the Sabers,batteries, chargers antennas and a RIB/cables/ DOS based computer but Moto no longer supports this (released in 1995) and its not available thru them. Saber RSS is RVN4002K. Version 07.01.00 if anyone has or knows of someone who does.

Yea, I'll send you a PM later tonight.

The Russians have what you seek.


They actually have everything that you could ever seek.

I found saber 6.1 and 7.1. I think 6.1 had a wider bandwidth, more like a lab version.

Looks like I have 7.01.02 if you still need it.

Thanks guys Ill take whatever I can get at this point -- what sort of media or form do youze have it on/in?

From what I've read Moto help desk has directed people to look for old RSS and CPS online. I think they finally gave up. Their flagship APX and TRBO is free too.

I did manage to get those downloaded--now the fun begins. Transferring SW to a computer that has no network connection(I think it had a PCMCIA modem at one point) and only a 3.5 floppy to work with is going to be a bit of a challenge. having to brush up on my DOS commands....I may acytually have to pull the HD and hook it up through an IDE adapter and just copy the files direct to the drive that way ! Be great if it would rain so's I'd have an excuse to stay inside and play with it all day but there is grass to be cut a deck to wash and a gutter I have to fix.....

would you believe??!!

just need to mod a cable and add a switch for the #6 and #8 pin difference between the saber/astro saber cables  and I might be in business!!

Nice!
That's what I did, a DPDT switch integrated into the DB end and you're in business.

C:\ backs you up to the root
md rss (or whatever name like rss makes a directory)
cd rss (or whatever folder) changes you to inside that directory, can keep going through the tree by changing the directory name if they are nested
once in a directory where the files reside such as A:\ do a copy *.* C\rss to move all files from the source to the destination (in this example rss directory)


What type of computer are you running? What speed? It must be very old without any cache enabled. It might act as if it's programming but if it's too fast it will result in I think is ERR 82 corrupted codeplug. It can usually be recovered with a proper speed computer.

the one is a Toshiba Portege T3600ct which i believe is a 386 from about 1992 or so running DOS and windows 3.1 and still actually holds a charge and runs flawlessly --small but for what i need it for it serves its purpose, the other one is a Panasonic cf-27 which is a Pentium and runs win98 over DOS 6.2 (?) but is easy enough to close windows and just operate in DOS. neither are speed demons but both have very little on them and no bloatware as is common today
 the Toshiba only has an outboard  floppy drive (attached by proprietary cable) which dosent always work... and a pcmcia slot that does not always recognize more modern attachments --it DID see the pcmcia sd card adapter as a drive and read it no problem. I set the port to 1200 baud and start there and would likely max out at 9600 the RSS and these radios dont like to write or be written to at high speed

For old computers there is a neat device now that accepts USB flash drives and emulates a floppy.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07W6Q9LPC?tag=arfcom00-20

That would be an *excellent* thing to get a screenshot of. They spanked a really good online resource over this a couple of years ago.

I've been planning on putting a video together that goes through the process of using a early Core 2 machine as a DOS programming rig...don't have enough light to start it tonight though but I've got everything setup at least.

Id be interested to see that.
Anyway the SW is working fine (thanks guys!) the one vhf saber I have the code plug got corrupted when I tried to write to it a second time but it will still read and write and from what Ive learned on batlabs and others the issue might be that I either need a slower computer or that the eeprom inside the radio may have actually failed --which would suck cause parts for these are pretty much unobtanium unless you can scavenge from another radio. UHF I was able to write several local repeaters and GMRS frequencies and it works great. I have friend up in Pittsburgh with an early IBM PC-XT (working)that I am going to get in a few days. I am going to load DOS on that and use it as a straight DOS machine for stuff like this.  My one Toshiba the floppy took a dump and its all proprietary so its not easily replaced. So getting SW onto and off the computer involves removing the HD and hooking that up to another computer and placing files directly on it... little bit tedious. to say the least.  
Ironiclly the PC-XT was the first real computer I had -- we wern't too far from IBM Poughkeepsie and the employees were able to purchase them with the BIG (20 Mb!!) hard drive. And 40 years later I'm getting another one for free.
Also rooting around in the SW grave yard  in the basement found a NIB set of DR-DOS operating system on 5.25 floppys so I may have to play around with that too if the disks are still any good.

For the first Part, I fee it is a little on the long side.

Back in the day, we used a small program to busy up the math co-processor. It was called moto slow or something like that.

Could this be used as a test?

I don't recall how to test the microprocessor and memory. I have the service manuals for a couple of the versions of the saber series, but I don't have them under my thumb. I went and looked at my dos computer... the screen melted in storage! Never seen that one before, and it was a controlled storage area. (shrugs)

Turning the cache off is typically adequate. I don't have it loaded in that video (but there is a plan to add more just recorded via VM instead of a physical machine) which walks through creating an autoexec.bat file which runs cacheoff.com (which can be downloaded from Repeater Builder) to accomplish the functionality needed for stabilizing the Spectra and Saber RSS. I've not tested it with the Syntor 9000 RSS though but with the cache disabled the RSS will at least open and run.

COOL!

Thank you for sharing. I have a pair of Charlie Sheen Saber R's I need to go through and sell, so this is all pertinent to my interest; it's been years since I fingered one.

I can't believe my screen died on my laptop, either. Glad I didn't need it in a pinch for someone.

If I decide to build up another, what is the one you would pick? I would prefer man portable like a laptop over a desktop. Was considering a .gov or .mil unit with a native serial.

Still looking for a real SmartRib in the sub-200 USD category, too. I want to learn more about flashing; I've only had limited experience doing that in a legit environment.

I would go with a Core 2 based Toughbook running 32 bit Windows 7 as the primary OS. That would give you the best overall support.

I have an old CF-18 Centrino with XP. I have a 1 Gig usb drive with RSS that I setup as a boot drive. I have to tell the bios menu to boot from USB but it generally runs about anything I need it for that's old. I've even managed to program a Syntor X9000 but I had to run a separate program that slows the processor. It's not moslow I know but I can't recall the name right now. It's the only one that worked.

I thought Dosbox was the hotness for running old software? Especially old moto software as you can adjust the speed.

Moslow, that was it. Thanks!

I don't know. I have had access to legit programming setups at multiple regional LMR and .gov radio shops over the years, and I've never seen anyone using it.

When i get to the point in the honeydo list to try and finish that project, I'll try it though.

... maybe I did use it for something. I have .074 on this very computer lol. Last old ones I remember doing on this one were some kenwoods for a college police department and that was yearrrs ago.

I've been trying for 10 years to get the COM port passthrough to work between the host OS (Windows XP and Windows 7) and DOSBox. I've not yet been successful.