Serial connection between QL and PC

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Derek_Stewart
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Re: Serial connection between QL and PC

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

It does not matter how old the software is, as long as you have setup the serial port in Windows in the device manager with the correct Baud Rate and configured the Windows terminal software, TeraTerm with the Windows COM port and baud rate, use Software Flow Control, connect the PC to the QL with a Null modem cable, you should connect from either QL or PC


Regards,

Derek
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bwinkel67
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Re: Serial connection between QL and PC

Post by bwinkel67 »

Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,

It does not matter how old the software is, as long as you have setup the serial port in Windows in the device manager with the correct Baud Rate and configured the Windows terminal software, TeraTerm with the Windows COM port and baud rate, use Software Flow Control, connect the PC to the QL with a Null modem cable, you should connect from either QL or PC
I can't do software flow control since what I want to do on the QL side is:

copy ser1hr to mdv2_file

Remember that I have no other software presently available on the QL side- - no floppy since I procured and modified it for my Amiga and my vDrive is broken and Charlie seems to be on vacation as I haven't gotten a response into next steps. Presumably one of the two Arduino's boards is broken and likely I'll have to buy a replacement and reprogram it but can't do that until I get info from him on where to get the software for it (is vDrive public domain?)


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bwinkel67
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Re: Serial connection between QL and PC

Post by bwinkel67 »

Success! So it turns out one of the four lines from QL to breakout box was not working...it was somehow not making contact on the connector end. Took me a while to debug with the breakout box but I saw that on the PC side, it was definitely doing hardware flow control. So now I can copy something over at 9600 bauds no problem. When I finally got it working, the red/green choreography it showed was a thing of beauty!

Just copied arc_bas (arc_exe as a BASIC via JOB2BAS_bas) over via:

copy ser1hr to arc_bas

...and it loaded and ran and created the arc_exe program which I was able to execute. Then I grabbed some arc'ed executables (my dhrystone benchmarks) and was able to re-generate them (Tera Term has a binary file transfer option and it all goes really quickly). Mind you I'm using a microdrive and cartridge, so not optimal but the copy ser1hr to file command is sweet. I'll have to investigate if the Amiga allows something similar...definitely feels like I'm using Unix :-). But funny that my old cart is working and my Arduino-base vDrive is broken.

Whew...that was difficult. But at least I know now my USB-to-RS232 works and does hardware flow control. Should have checked the cable more closely, but where it is broken is not obvious (i.e. the wire is fine and not loose anywhere, so it's got to be on the inside at the RJ11 side where is feels firmly placed.


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bwinkel67
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Re: Serial connection between QL and PC

Post by bwinkel67 »

XorA wrote:Yeah by 97 we had 16950 UARTS and they could do 2M without dropping a byte no hardware flow control.

Weirdly this was only broken by ARM chips which had shitty UARTS with no FIFOs!
Btw, the driver (Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port) had an advanced setting to adjust or turn off FIFO buffers. I just turned them off to be safe, though I have no idea if that impacted anything since it states "requires 16550 compatible UART" which I don't know if the USB-to-RS232 has.


Derek_Stewart
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Re: Serial connection between QL and PC

Post by Derek_Stewart »

HI,

Well done, in my experience t is usually a cabling issue that causes the problem in serial comms.

The vDriveQL is commerical and closed source.

The Oqtadrive is open source, which does the same thing, but can use a Raspberry PI W or BannaPI to connect to the Microdrive imagies on the Oqtadrive, by WIFI connection.

I have some to make, just got to get motivated....


Regards,

Derek
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