Looking for a little help with Kermit.

[ubercoder]

Hi all,
I’m trying to get 2 old (ish) machines talking to each other. One is a windows 7 laptop running an Acorn BBC emulator and the other is a real Acorn BBC Micro.

I’m connecting them via a serial cable and serial to USB adapter. I know these are good.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a problem either with the laptop or with the emulator.

I believe the Serial to USB adapter is correctly configured in the W7 machine. It shows up as it should in the Device Manager, at least.

My plan is to use some serial terminal software (ie Kermit) on the W7 machine to talk to a simple terminal on the BBC micro. The software on the BBC is tested and working.

So…how can I use Kermit to send and receive plain text (ie from the keyboard) to/from the BBC? I haven’t used Kermit since the ‘90s, and I’m a little rusty!!

I have tried to use other terminal apps, but none have worked…as in none even run. I have also tried simply redirecting the output of a doc command to the serial port, such as : dir > com2, which I think should have worked, but didn’t.


For context, the goal of this exercise is to have the W7 laptop running a BBC software package in the emulator and use it to control an old weaving loom. So far I haven’t been able to get the laptop and the loom to talk to each other, so I’m trying to determine and fix what is stopping the comms working. I don’t have direct access to the loom at home, so the next best thing is to use my BBC micro, as it uses the same serial cable.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Paul

 

[mark0x01]

Try the guide here

Not mine, but it might be helpful.

The BBC is RS423, not RS232, so having the correct adapter may be the issue.

 

[ubercoder]

Try the guide here

Not mine, but it might be helpful.

The BBC is RS423, not RS232, so having the correct adapter may be the issue.

Thats an excellent guide - thanks, but in this case, I don'y think the issue is with the BBC, as I've managed to get successfully comms working between it my modern Linux PC, so I know the serial cable & serial to USB combo are fully working.

My assumptiuon is that for some reason the little Windows7 laptop is for some reason preventing the USB-Serial adapter from working correctly - or more likely, its the driver.

Its an FTDI based adapter and I'm using the FTDI driver. It shows up in Device Manager shows as COM2 and has been set to 4800 8N1, which the BBC requires

 

[ubercoder]

I have come to the conclusion that the comms problems I've been experiencing lie with the either USB-Serial adapter driver on W7, or with W7 itself.

I've just dragged out my old W10 laptop, installed BeebEm and the W10 driver for the serial adapter, and immediately got full 2 way comms between the W10 instance of BeebEm and the real Beeb...

I don't think any further messing with serial monitors or teminals on the W7 machine will help at all, as I don't think the data is reaching them in the 1st place.

Thanks all for all you input. I've learned a lot!

cheers

Paul

 

[rlauzon]

To connect both machines, you'll need a null modem between (i.e. RX-TX type of thing). You can also get null modem USB to RS-232 cables too.

Also, Kermit is also a terminal emulator. So the next debugging step is to have Kermit go into terminal mode on both. Typing on one should appear on the other.

Bonus: Most USB-to-RS-232 cables have RX/TX lights on them which might help.

 

[ubercoder]

Rlauzon, thank for your input.

I believe I've now narrowed the communication problem down to the usb adapter driver on W7. The same cable and terminal software on a W10 box works perfectly. The only differences are therefore the OS and the OS specific driver. My bet is on the driver.