TI to PC Serial Connection

[RobertLM78]

I know there are several demonstrations of doing this (for example, Opry99er's videos on YouTube), but many seem a bit out of date and some require additional software for the TI and/or Windows XP. What I have is a USB to Serial cable, TE II, and a PC running Linux Mint 13 (with PuTTY installed see http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ ). Are there any Linux users out there that have figured out how to do this? I think I'm missing some setting or another within PuTTY: for one, I can't seem to get it to recognize the link when I assign it as /dev/ttyUSB0 (which I think is right, see below)

 

$ sudo lsusb

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub

Bus 002 Device 003: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port

Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0bda:0152 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Mass Storage Device

Bus 002 Device 005: ID 04ca:004f Lite-On Technology Corp.

Bus 002 Device 006: ID 046d:c05a Logitech, Inc. Optical Mouse M90

$ dmesg | grep tty

[ 0.000000] console [tty0] enabled

[ 26.485105] usb 2-1.4: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0

[40803.554239] PM: resume of drv:pl2303 dev:ttyUSB0 complete after 119.623 msecs

/dev $ ls

ati dvdrw loop1 null ram2 sda3 sg5 tty13 tty27 tty40 tty54 ttyS0 ttyS22 ttyS8 vcs3

autofs ecryptfs loop2 oldmem ram3 sda4 sg6 tty14 tty28 tty41 tty55 ttyS1 ttyS23 ttyS9 vcs4

block fb0 loop3 port ram4 sda5 shm tty15 tty29 tty42 tty56 ttyS10 ttyS24 ttyUSB0 vcs5

bsg fd loop4 ppp ram5 sda6 snapshot tty16 tty3 tty43 tty57 ...<etc>

[Opry99er]

I can't speak to PuTTY, but I can tell you that if you're wanting to do XModem transfers, you'll be out of luck with Terminal Emulator II (IIRC). XModem transfers are the specialty of Magic FM, Telco, Fastterm, etc...

 

Unless I'm gravely mistaken, you cannot do XModem transfers on the Terminal Emulator II cartridge.

[+mizapf]

I've used putty in Windows only to get the ssh and scp tools that are included in Linux, so why use putty? Can it handle XModem?

 

I included an XModem implementation in TIImageTool (see the resources collection in this forum). You need Java 5 or higher and the RXTX library to access the serial interface. After installing you should be able to exchange files with the TI or Geneve on the other side using TELCO or other Terminal Emulators (except for the TE-II, as Owen already said).

 

Michael

[RobertLM78]

Thank you for the input fellas. Well, I'm in the process of updating my main system (waiting on Sagemath download, namely), and should hopefully have both TIImageTool and TI-99/Sim installed soon. There's one problem left though - and that is how does one get their hands on TELCO or Magic FM ?

Edited May 14, 2013 by RobertLM78

[Opry99er]

If you can write TI disks from your PC, just DL it and do it up that way. If not, do what I did... Ask someone to send you a copy, then make several copies of it and pay it forward to the next fella who has the same question in a few months. I've sent out 4 or 5 copies of MFM over the years... Don't even know if I still have a copy myself!!!! 8D

[RobertLM78]

If not, do what I did... Ask someone to send you a copy, then make several copies of it and pay it forward to the next fella who has the same question in a few months. I've sent out 4 or 5 copies of MFM over the years... Don't even know if I still have a copy myself!!!! 8D

Sounds like an idea! I guess I'll have to ask around - I've got a few extra disks I could certainly use for paying it forward

[+mizapf]

Do you have a floppy drive in your PC that fits the drive of your TI? I could offer you a simple copy tool in Linux which can read and write TI disks. This way I backed up my whole disk collection as disk images (well, almost, except for some really unreadable disks).

[RobertLM78]

Do you have a floppy drive in your PC that fits the drive of your TI? I could offer you a simple copy tool in Linux which can read and write TI disks. This way I backed up my whole disk collection as disk images (well, almost, except for some really unreadable disks).

No, unfortunately not. I used to have a nice exterior 5.25 floppy that probably could have been made to connect to the PC, but it got thrown away by someone that didn't know what they were doing . I could try and look around for something on Ebay - I could probably spend up to $40. Is there any specifications that will make it a little more easy to get such an old piece of hardware connected to a new machine?

[RobertLM78]

Thinking more about this - it would be great to get something working. If I could transfer between the two systems I can maybe even play around with some of these compliers available and compile some of my favourite titles that I always felt ran a little too slowly .

[+mizapf]

I got a 5,25" drive from ebay for about €20,-. Yes, it's difficult to get some. You can also think about attaching a 3,5" drive to the TI, but keep in mind that there may be problems with 40/80 tracks and in particular HD disks.

[Opry99er]

BTW... The compilers work great in Classic99 and MESS.

 

You interested in coding some games?? Writing some original software? There are some excellent resources on here to get you started..

 

100 CALL CLEAR :: CALL SCREEN(16)

110 PRINT "YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO"

120 PRINT :: PRINT :: PRINT

130 END

[RobertLM78]

BTW... The compilers work great in Classic99 and MESS.

 

You interested in coding some games?? Writing some original software? There are some excellent resources on here to get you started..

 

100 CALL CLEAR :: CALL SCREEN(16)

110 PRINT "YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO"

120 PRINT :: PRINT :: PRINT

130 END

I do indeed want to - a little bit of all the above! For example, I wrote a library cataloging program a long while back, but it has some serious inefficiencies - so I'm going to start essentially from scratch - I just need to do a little review of File Management as I'm having problems recalling records when searching through the file. Once I can figure out how to get things transferred between the PC and TI I can share whatever I create .

 

Now for MESS - I need to get that running. I haven't had much luck when trying to install it previously, but then that was right after changing the PC systems to Linux, so I was a bit green.

 

I got a 5,25" drive from ebay for about €20,-. Yes, it's difficult to get some. You can also think about attaching a 3,5" drive to the TI, but keep in mind that there may be problems with 40/80 tracks and in particular HD disks.

It looks like the 5.25 drives can still be found - but how to connect them to a modern PC?

[slinkeey]

I think there are USB to FDD adapters.

[RobertLM78]

I think there are USB to FDD adapters.

Looking around amazon, it looks like there are PCI boards that you can pop in that have the old interface and power plug . For about $50-60 and I may be good to go.

Do you have a floppy drive in your PC that fits the drive of your TI? I could offer you a simple copy tool in Linux which can read and write TI disks. This way I backed up my whole disk collection as disk images (well, almost, except for some really unreadable disks).

I think I'll take you up on that offer Michael- it looks like having a floppy drive on the PC is going to be the most straight forward way of transferring files.

[+mizapf]

IIRC there are some cases where PC disk controllers have real trouble when reading the TI disks, related to the first sector on the track. In that case the file transfer via XModem may be the only way out. On the other hand, as I said, I was able to read more than 90% of my old TI floppies right away, so this method worked sufficiently well for me. Nevertheless, today, for single files I'm using XModem because it is quicker. Copying back to disk means you always have to write the whole image back, always with some probability of failure.

 

My suggestion: Use the floppy drive for mass transfer between TI and PC. Later, use XModem for synchronizing.

 

If you plan to install MESS please have a look at my notes at http://www.ninerpedia.org/index.php/MESS . This should clear up most of the initial issues. For most Linux distributions you have to make sure that you have installed the necessary libraries (like GTK2, SDL, SDL_ttf, Qt4).

[Opry99er]

Once I can figure out how to get things transferred between the PC and TI I can share whatever I create

 

I do all my development on Classic99 these days. Partly because my hardware is sidelined, but mainly because it's fast, friendly, efficient, I can do any coding and running I need to, I can save all my work into virtually any format I want (aside from CS1) and I can arrange the directories any way I choose.

 

My development suite is a combination of Classic99, TI99-Dir, and Notepad++ with syntax highlighting.

 

You have those three things, you can pretty much do whatever you want. =)

[RobertLM78]

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I do all my development on Classic99 these days. Partly because my hardware is sidelined, but mainly because it's fast, friendly, efficient, I can do any coding and running I need to, I can save all my work into virtually any format I want (aside from CS1) and I can arrange the directories any way I choose.

 

My development suite is a combination of Classic99, TI99-Dir, and Notepad++ with syntax highlighting.

 

You have those three things, you can pretty much do whatever you want. =)

Emulated development is absolutely a viable alternative - but if I can do it "old school", that's even better . (For example, I found recently that Beyond WordWriter makes an excellent editor, and you can catalog the disk at any time right from BWW or save the DIS/VAR 80 on cassette as a multi-part file).

 

My suggestion: Use the floppy drive for mass transfer between TI and PC. Later, use XModem for synchronizing.

 

If you plan to install MESS please have a look at my notes at http://www.ninerpedi.../index.php/MESS . This should clear up most of the initial issues. For most Linux distributions you have to make sure that you have installed the necessary libraries (like GTK2, SDL, SDL_ttf, Qt4).

- cool, thanks for the link. It looks like I've got to get that hardware together, and that copy utility you mentioned, and I'll be well on the way. Once the right software is installed on both sides I can make use of Xmodem transfer. This will be a bit of process, but well worth the $50 and effort .