TI <-> Amiga null-modem connection

[Count9929A]

Hi,

 

 since my only computers with the legacy RS232 left are the TI and the Amiga, I'd like to get them talk to each other! 🙂 

No problems form the Amiga side, I know how to use it. But I never used the RS232 card in my PEB.

First question: as suggested in several threads, I did a first test of the RS232 with nothing connected to it, by typing OLD RS232. I did not get any error and the number 255 is displayed at the top of the screen. From what I read, this should indicate that the card is (at least at minimal) working but... my TI hangs, forever waiting an input. Is this the expected behavior of a working card?

 

Assuming the card works, I would go on trying to connect the TI with the Amiga. I noticed that the TI card has a female RS232 connector (as usual found in modems) while the Amiga (except the A1000 I think, but I plan to work with an A600 or an A1200) has the more common (at least to me) male RS232 connector. This is apparently a lucky coincidence, since I only have serial cables M-F used to connect the Amiga with modems or other peripherals that usually came with a female port. Do you think that it is ok to connect the Amiga and the TI with such a cable?

 

Last question, software on the TI-side: is the TEII cart what I need as a terminal program?

 

[+OLD CS1]

The TI is wired as a device (DCE) so you should be able to connect the TI directly to the Amiga without a null-modem adapter or cable.  The caveat is 12V on pin 9 of the Amiga RS-232C port.  This has been a warning to all comers for decades, but I believe the +12V/-12V on pins 9/10 is part of the standard.  YMMV.

 

On the Amiga 1000, the difference in the RS-232C port is just a gender swap.

 

The serial device driver you use will make some difference.  If your A600 is unaccelerated (running the stock 68000) and you are using AmigaOS 3.1 or older, you will want to steer clear of the built-in serial.device for high-speed transfers.  It will often cause problems over 9600bps.  In this configuration I liked to use BaudBandit.device, and even kept it as I moved into acceleration.  The 68020-based A1200 should be fine.  (Different versions of serial.device have different problems, like dropped bytes at high speed or under heavy multi-tasking, or lock-up when closing, that kinda thing.)

 

You have the option to use another serial.device and there are a few good replacements on AmiNet.  Ones I have tried in the past with success on a 56k modem were New8n1.device and artser.device, each having its own advantages.  If you use AmigaOS 3.1.4 or later (note, 3.5, 3.8 and 3.9 are NOT later than and actually precede 3.1.4,) then the built-in serial.device should be fine.

 

On the Amiga side I have always been partial to JRComm, but it is shareware and requires registration (my A500 purchase in 1993 came with a registered version.)  Others recommend NComm which is freeware thanks to the author's public key release.  There are others, but I have no idea if there is anything more modern.

 

The TI side of things is where I have not experimented much.  The only serial stuff I have done between the TI and the real world for data transfer is using HDX, so I am no help here.

[+9640News]

6 hours ago, Count9929A said:

Last question, software on the TI-side: is the TEII cart what I need as a terminal program?

 

On the TI side of things, a program like TELCO should meet all your needs as far as a terminal program.

 

Once the two computers are connected, what is it you are wanting to do?  Transfer programs?  TI to Amiga or Amiga to TI?  Asking as there may be simpler options potentially available.  It also depends upon whether you are wanting to invest any $$ into the TI anymore than what you have currently invested.

 

The TEII card is not a terminal program you would want to use as you can get 300 baud, and maybe 1200 baud, but other than capturing text, that will be it as it has no cross-platform file transfer standards such as XMODEM implemented.

 

 

[+arcadeshopper]

I prefer to use MAGIC-FM on the TI side, it acts like an Xmodem BBS in that  you just load a terminal on the amiga and you can catalog disks and download/upload files directly from MAGIC-FM it also works great at 19200 baud which you won't find a terminal working at well unless you use something like TIMXT 

 

It's available online:

 

You can get a PC99 image from WHTECH at: ftp://ftp.whtech.com/pc99/micropendium/961112.dsk

or a v9t9/mess format here http://www.errorfree.de/Menu08.html

 

or you can get a disk from my store if you don't have an easy way to transfer files to your TI. 

 

TE and TEII both only work at 7 bits even parity (7e1) so this can be a pain as most terms on other systems default to 8n1 (8 bits, no parity) 

Telco is great but you still have to work both computers with that, while magicfm you just need to type on the terminal side . 

 

Greg 

[Casey]

14 hours ago, Count9929A said:

 

First question: as suggested in several threads, I did a first test of the RS232 with nothing connected to it, by typing OLD RS232. I did not get any error and the number 255 is displayed at the top of the screen. From what I read, this should indicate that the card is (at least at minimal) working but... my TI hangs, forever waiting an input. Is this the expected behavior of a working card?

 

This test seems to be correct.  If you had 2 TI's hooked together (or connected via modem) you can transfer a TI BASIC program between them by doing OLD RS232 on the receiving TI and SAVE RS232 on the sending TI.  That 255 number would then change into the number of blocks it needs to transfer and would countdown to 0 and you'd have the sending TI's program in your computer.  But it displays 255 and waits until it starts to receive a program, so the behavior is expected.

[Count9929A]

13 hours ago, OLD CS1 said:

The TI is wired as a device (DCE) so you should be able to connect the TI directly to the Amiga without a null-modem adapter or cable.  The caveat is 12V on pin 9 of the Amiga RS-232C port.  This has been a warning to all comers for decades, but I believe the +12V/-12V on pins 9/10 is part of the standard.  YMMV.

 

Thanks for your valuable information about Amiga serial. I don't remember what setup I have on different Amigas (I have several, currently all in storage). To simply connect to the TI I think that any version of the serial device would suffice. Never being an heavy user of BBSs, BITD I was content with a terminal program called Terminus. Probably not as powerful as JRComm or NComm (I also recall a program called Term), but simple enough for me to do my jobs. But I will consider better alternatives

[Count9929A]

13 hours ago, arcadeshopper said:

I prefer to use MAGIC-FM on the TI side, it acts like an Xmodem BBS in that  you just load a terminal on the amiga and you can catalog disks and download/upload files directly from MAGIC-FM it also works great at 19200 baud which you won't find a terminal working at well unless you use something like TIMXT 

 

It's available online:

 

You can get a PC99 image from WHTECH at: ftp://ftp.whtech.com/pc99/micropendium/961112.dsk

or a v9t9/mess format here http://www.errorfree.de/Menu08.html

 

or you can get a disk from my store if you don't have an easy way to transfer files to your TI. 

 

TE and TEII both only work at 7 bits even parity (7e1) so this can be a pain as most terms on other systems default to 8n1 (8 bits, no parity) 

Telco is great but you still have to work both computers with that, while magicfm you just need to type on the terminal side . 

 

Greg 

Thanks for the info Greg!

I will think about ordering the disk from your store. I am a little worried about shipping costs in Italy 😞

[Count9929A]

14 hours ago, 9640News said:

On the TI side of things, a program like TELCO should meet all your needs as far as a terminal program.

 

Once the two computers are connected, what is it you are wanting to do?  Transfer programs?  TI to Amiga or Amiga to TI?  Asking as there may be simpler options potentially available.  It also depends upon whether you are wanting to invest any $$ into the TI anymore than what you have currently invested.

 

The TEII card is not a terminal program you would want to use as you can get 300 baud, and maybe 1200 baud, but other than capturing text, that will be it as it has no cross-platform file transfer standards such as XMODEM implemented.

 

 

Thanks Beery!

My first aim is just to connect them and send texts back and forth to check that the connection and the hardware works.

Transfering files is not a necessity, I usually use the TI with a nanoPEB, although it would be nice to create some physical disks. 

I guess that with $$ I could get better tools to transfer files (HDX, maybe also TIPI ?), but for now I just would like to use the hardware that I already own.

 

But now I am curious about TEII: without file trasfer protocols, what is it good for? Which was its intended use BITD?

 

Luca

[+OLD CS1]

10 hours ago, Count9929A said:

I usually use the TI with a nanoPEB

The nanoPEB has a proper DE-9 serial port, so you will need a null-modem adapter to connect to the Amiga with that.

 

10 hours ago, Count9929A said:

I guess that with $$ I could get better tools to transfer files (HDX

You can use HDX for free by using the CFHDX program, which works like DM2K but with the HDX DSR built-in.  Check @arcadeshopper's HDX page for info.

 

https://www.arcadeshopper.com/wp/ti-99-4a-faq-pc-to-ti-transfers-with-stock-rs232-nanopeb-and-hdx-server/

[HOME AUTOMATION]

1 hour ago, Count9929A said:

But now I am curious about TEII: without file trasfer protocols, what is it good for? Which was its intended use BITD?

    It's ALIVE! With a speech synthesizer it can read aloud.

[+mizapf]

4 hours ago, Count9929A said:

But now I am curious about TEII: without file trasfer protocols, what is it good for? Which was its intended use BITD?

As its name says: a Terminal Emulator. It was intended to emulate a terminal, no more or less.

 

Back in those days, I used it to connect to mailbox servers/BBS.

[+9640News]

5 hours ago, Count9929A said:

 

But now I am curious about TEII: without file trasfer protocols, what is it good for? Which was its intended use BITD?

 

Luca,

 

Back in the late 70's to very early 80's, it was the only terminal emulator for the TI-99/4A.  I believe there was some online BBS service one could pay to access (The Source???) that had file transfer capabilities along with the terminal access.  I am not sure too many people used it as it was very expensive.  Later on, Paul Charlton's FastTerm came about that provided XMODEM file transfer ability with first Barry Traver's archiving files into a single filename and then subsequently Barry Boone's "Archiver" that also offered file compression capability.

 

TE2 by itself without online capability expanded the speech capabilities with some TI-Basic programs requiring the TE2 cartridge to work properly.  These days, I think most TE2 cartridges sit on a shelf.

[+arcadeshopper]

8 hours ago, Count9929A said:

Thanks for the info Greg!

I will think about ordering the disk from your store. I am a little worried about shipping costs in Italy 😞

I'm sure Ciro could make you a disk too

 

Greg

[Count9929A]

2 hours ago, arcadeshopper said:

I'm sure Ciro could make you a disk too

 

Greg

I will ask him, thanks. No terminal program (other than than TEII) is available as a cart image for FG99?

[+9640News]

43 minutes ago, Count9929A said:

I will ask him, thanks. No terminal program (other than than TEII) is available as a cart image for FG99?

I just left a post in the FinalGrom99 topic area below that is likely to get more response for creating a FG99 cartridge dump of something like FastTerm or MXT.

 

 

[+arcadeshopper]

47 minutes ago, Count9929A said:

I will ask him, thanks. No terminal program (other than than TEII) is available as a cart image for FG99?

there's many, in that forum he posted.. or the finalgrom.zip on whtech fast term, mxt , etc 

[+arcadeshopper]

On 11/16/2022 at 10:34 AM, arcadeshopper said:

there's many, in that forum he posted.. or the finalgrom.zip on whtech fast term, mxt , etc 

did you find it?  

[Count9929A]

On 11/20/2022 at 5:13 AM, arcadeshopper said:

did you find it?  

Yes, it took me some time because I had no time to dedicate to the TI, but at last I found FastTerm as a cart image! and I learnt:

- MassTransfert is included in XB2.7 (which I already have in my FG99)!

- TELCO is probably not suitable to be transformed in cart image for FG99

- TIMXT does require F18a so is not suitable for my use-case

 

So I have 2 cart options that should allow me to transfer files into physical floppies. And if one of them works, I could transfer MAGIC-FM and also TELCO, in case I would like to test one more Terminal program.

 

Meanwhile I had success in connecting the TI with the Amiga via standard RS232 cable. I used TE2 to "chat" with the Amiga. It was fun! 🙂

[Count9929A]

Hi,

 

 I am resurrecting this thread to say a big THANK YOU to all you guys that helped me with precious information!

Thanks to all of you that answered to my questions! This is really a great community!

 

I am progressing on the topic, albeit slowly (beacuse of few time, not of difficulties). Now using Fast Term (as cart image) I am finally able to exchange files form the real TI to the Amiga, and from there to the internet any other PC. For now this suffice my needs, but soon I will try MagicFM on the real TI, which should be really useful because, indeed you were right that setting up the file transfer process one file at the time, with Fast Term + NComm is   awkward (but works!).