16 Jun
2013
16 Jun
'13
9 p.m.
On 6/15/2013 10:37 PM, Ben wrote:
Only one problem there, most (if not all) EIA-232 adapters for USB won't go below 300
Baud. It is a problem when trying to get the old ASR33 to type things out!
Of course you need to also add two stop bits, but that is pretty easy (as he notes the
only place two stop bits were used was for the 33/35 teletypes).
On 6/15/2013 8:48 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
> That bothers me too...I'm accumulating adapters and gender > changers
> though. ;)
>
USB has RS232 adapters, now you can have the best of
both worlds.
2 GHZ download for your 110 baud TTY.
> -tony
Ben. 
17 Jun
17 Jun
1:33 a.m.
On 6/16/13 6:00 PM, "Tom Watson" <tsw-cc at johana.com> wrote:
On 6/15/2013 10:37 PM, Ben wrote:
Only one problem there, most (if not all) EIA-232 adapters for USB won't
go below 300 Baud. It is a problem when trying to get the old ASR33 to
type things out!
Of course you need to also add two stop bits, but that is pretty easy (as
he notes the only place two stop bits were used was for the 33/35
teletypes).
I've experienced this, trying to use a USB serial adapter in place of an
ASR-33 to serve up an imaged paper tape on a PDP-8/e. It does not work.
It's an interesting question as to why this is a problem. :-)
On 6/15/2013 8:48 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
> That bothers me too...I'm accumulating adapters and gender > changers
> though. ;)
>
USB has RS232 adapters, now you can have the best
of both worlds.
2 GHZ download for your 110 baud TTY.
> -tony
Ben. 
10:57 a.m.
On Jun 16, 2013, at 10:33 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
On 6/16/13 6:00 PM, "Tom Watson" <tsw-cc
at johana.com> wrote:
Is it because of baud (bit) rate or an incompatibility?
If the former, most baud rate generators won't generate 110 unless specific
crystals/divisors are chosen. Otherwise they'll start at 300.
If the latter, I've found that some USB serial adapters aren't friendly to
classic
gear. I haven't thrown an analyzer between them to figure it out. I've found
some that seem to work most often (Belkin springs to mind...still doesn't
support 110 though).
TTFN - Guy
On 6/15/2013 10:37 PM, Ben wrote:
Only one problem there, most (if not all) EIA-232 adapters for USB won't
go below 300 Baud. It is a problem when trying to get the old ASR33 to
type things out!
Of course you need to also add two stop bits, but that is pretty easy (as
he notes the only place two stop bits were used was for the 33/35
teletypes).
I've experienced this, trying to use a USB serial adapter in place of an
ASR-33 to serve up an imaged paper tape on a PDP-8/e. It does not work.
It's an interesting question as to why this is a problem. :-) On 6/15/2013 8:48 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
> That bothers me too...I'm accumulating adapters and gender > changers
> though. ;)
>
USB has RS232 adapters, now you can have the best
of both worlds.
2 GHZ download for your 110 baud TTY.
> -tony
Ben. 
11:01 a.m.
On 6/17/2013 8:57 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
On Jun 16, 2013, at 10:33 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
How about a TEXT vs BINARY file format transfer problems if you use
DOS/Windows?
Ben.
On 6/16/13 6:00 PM, "Tom Watson"
<tsw-cc at johana.com> wrote:
Is it because of baud (bit) rate or an incompatibility?
If the former, most baud rate generators won't generate 110 unless specific
crystals/divisors are chosen. Otherwise they'll start at 300.
If the latter, I've found that some USB serial adapters aren't friendly to
classic
gear. I haven't thrown an analyzer between them to figure it out. I've found
some that seem to work most often (Belkin springs to mind...still doesn't
support 110 though).
TTFN - Guy
On 6/15/2013 10:37 PM, Ben wrote:
I've experienced this, trying to use a USB serial adapter in place of an
ASR-33 to serve up an imaged paper tape on a PDP-8/e. It does not work.
It's an interesting question as to why this is a problem. :-) On 6/15/2013 8:48 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
> That bothers me too...I'm accumulating adapters and gender > changers
> though. ;)
>
USB has RS232 adapters, now you can have the best
of both worlds.
2 GHZ download for your 110 baud TTY.
>> -tony
Ben.
Only one problem there, most (if not all) EIA-232 adapters for USB won't
go below 300 Baud. It is a problem when trying to get the old ASR33 to
type things out!
Of course you need to also add two stop bits, but that is pretty easy (as
he notes the only place two stop bits were used was for the 33/35
teletypes).
11:30 a.m.
Note that the conversion from 300 baud to 110 baud (or 75 or 45 or however
low you can go) is so incredibly slow that any modern microcontroller can
bit bang two serial ports with flow control and/or a couple dozen K of
buffering.
Wiring up the MAX232s or clones or MAX235s and the sheer tediousness of
DTE/DCE male/female 9pin/25pin is probably more agonizing than writing the
microcontroller software, even assuming you write your own uart instead of
just including two bitbang serial library and the code for a big FIFO
buffer outta the standard microcontroller library.
In the "olden days" printer buffers which would spool up a print job
reading as fast as possible were popular back when printers were dumb and
slow. If you could find two (bidirectional) vintage serial port printer
buffer/spool that did 110 baud on one side and wire up an adapter to use
both...
On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 10:01 AM, ben <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
On 6/17/2013 8:57 AM, Guy Sotomayor wrote:
On Jun 16, 2013, at 10:33 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
On 6/16/13 6:00 PM, "Tom Watson" <tsw-cc at johana.com> wrote:
How about a TEXT vs BINARY file format transfer problems if you use
DOS/Windows?
Ben.
On 6/15/2013 10:37 PM, Ben wrote:
Is it because of baud (bit) rate or an incompatibility?
If the former, most baud rate generators won't generate 110 unless
specific
crystals/divisors are chosen. Otherwise they'll start at 300.
If the latter, I've found that some USB serial adapters aren't friendly
to classic
gear. I haven't thrown an analyzer between them to figure it out. I've
found
some that seem to work most often (Belkin springs to mind...still doesn't
support 110 though).
TTFN - Guy
On 6/15/2013 8:48 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
>
> That bothers me too...I'm accumulating adapters and gender > changers
>> though. ;)
>>
>>
USB has RS232 adapters, now you can have the best of both worlds.
> 2 GHZ download for your 110 baud TTY.
>
-tony
>>>
>> Ben.
>
Only one problem there, most (if not all) EIA-232 adapters for USB won't
go below 300 Baud. It is a problem when trying to get the old ASR33 to
type things out!
Of course you need to also add two stop bits, but that is pretty easy
(as
he notes the only place two stop bits were used was for the 33/35
teletypes).
I've experienced this, trying to use a USB serial adapter in place of an
ASR-33 to serve up an imaged paper tape on a PDP-8/e. It does not work.
It's an interesting question as to why this is a problem. :-)
11:22 a.m.
New subject: USB
On Jun 17, 2013, at 10:57 AM, Guy Sotomayor <ggs at shiresoft.com> wrote:
Is it because of baud (bit) rate or an incompatibility?
Often times, it's because of drivers. Sometimes it's because the baud
generators on the chip won't go that low, or at least it's not called
out in the spec sheet as supported (FTDI's datasheet for the FT2232,
for example, only calls out as low as 300 baud). Other times, it's
because the driver writers never bothered to implement support for
anything that low ("Why would anyone want to go THAT SLOW these days,
anyway?").
In the case of hardware support, a lot of stuff that's mostly only
specific to Teletypes (5-bit characters, 1.5 stop bits) sometimes gets
eliminated because "no one uses it anyway", and I feel like sometimes
110 baud gets incorrectly lumped in with that set.
Only one problem there, most (if not all) EIA-232
adapters for USB won't
go below 300 Baud. It is a problem when trying to get the old ASR33 to
type things out!
Of course you need to also add two stop bits, but that is pretty easy (as
he notes the only place two stop bits were used was for the 33/35
teletypes).
I've experienced this, trying to use a USB serial adapter in place of an
ASR-33 to serve up an imaged paper tape on a PDP-8/e. It does not work.
It's an interesting question as to why this is a problem. :-) If the former, most baud rate generators won't
generate 110 unless specific
crystals/divisors are chosen. Otherwise they'll start at 300.
Generally, divisors aren't that hard (unless you run out of bits).
Some of the USB converter chips have a selected set of divisors in the
chip as a lookup table, though (they assume you're running with one
fixed crystal speed, which you need for USB anyway). Even if you
don't have an exact division factor (which you won't for getting 110
baud out of a 48 MHz oscillator, which is somewhat common for USB),
as long as it's off by only a few percent, you're not likely to see
any adverse effects on the other end.
If the latter, I've found that some USB serial
adapters aren't friendly to classic
gear. I haven't thrown an analyzer between them to figure it out. I've found
some that seem to work most often (Belkin springs to mind...still doesn't
support 110 though).
It's usually down to their RS232 level shifters. PC hardware is
usually pretty accommodating of less-than-standard levels, partly
because PCs themselves (especially older laptops) have been notorious
for producing somewhat less-than-standard voltages, but a lot of
vintage gear really does want you to get pretty close to +/- 12v.
The converters with good level shifters work fine, but that is also
unfortunately totally independent of the USB chip used, so you can't
really tell without either opening one up or using a scope. The sad
thing is that a good level shifter still costs less than a buck, but
to a company producing 10 million items, the difference between "less
than a buck" and "just a few cents" is astronomical.
- Dave
2:32 p.m.
New subject: USB
On Mon, 17 Jun 2013, David Riley wrote:
Often times, it's because of drivers. Sometimes
it's because the baud
generators on the chip won't go that low, or at least it's not called
out in the spec sheet as supported (FTDI's datasheet for the FT2232,
for example, only calls out as low as 300 baud). Other times, it's
because the driver writers never bothered to implement support for
anything that low ("Why would anyone want to go THAT SLOW these days,
anyway?").
[lots more to save for future thought]
"Why support ANYTHING that was obsolete before I was born?
Why support ANYTHING less than 56K?
Why support ANYTHING RS232?"
"it is for the good of the industry that we make people 'upgrade'"
Youse guys will hijack ANY thread!
The original post in this thread was a perfectly normal
off-topic/meta-topic rant about what we argue about, and
you have moved it COMPLETELY back into classic computers!
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
(#2, but I s'pose I could try harder to be the most prolific & offensive)
3:46 p.m.
New subject: USB
On 06/17/2013 02:32 PM, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Mon, 17 Jun 2013, David Riley wrote:
The bastards!
Often times, it's because of drivers.
Sometimes it's because the baud
generators on the chip won't go that low, or at least it's not called
out in the spec sheet as supported (FTDI's datasheet for the FT2232,
for example, only calls out as low as 300 baud). Other times, it's
because the driver writers never bothered to implement support for
anything that low ("Why would anyone want to go THAT SLOW these days,
anyway?").
[lots more to save for future thought]
"Why support ANYTHING that was obsolete before I was born?
Why support ANYTHING less than 56K?
Why support ANYTHING RS232?"
"it is for the good of the industry that we make people 'upgrade'"
Youse guys will hijack ANY thread!
The original post in this thread was a perfectly normal
off-topic/meta-topic rant about what we argue about, and
you have moved it COMPLETELY back into classic computers! Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
(#2, but I s'pose I could try harder to be the most prolific & offensive)
--
--- Dave Woyciesjes
--- ICQ# 905818
--- CompTIA A+ Certified IT Tech - http://certification.comptia.org/
--- HDI Certified Support Center Analyst - http://www.ThinkHDI.com/
Registered Linux user number 464583
"Computers have lots of memory but no imagination."
"The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back."
- from some guy on the internet.
8:02 p.m.
New subject: USB
On 17 June 2013 16:22, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
("Why would anyone want to go THAT SLOW these
days,
anyway?").
I visited a dot-comrade today on a farm in the country outside a
coastal city near me. He runs a small business doing industrial
equipment monitoring. His servers dial the factory machines via
ordinary 56kb modems -- but at 300 baud, to my considerable surprise.
The reason is a good one, though, and one I would not have readily
thought of. Modem negotiation is much quicker at such low speeds, and
with only hundreds of bytes to transfer -- if that -- the speeds are
not really an issue. Overall, this significantly lowers call times.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
18 Jun
18 Jun
2:40 p.m.
New subject: USB
On 17 June 2013 16:22, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
A system clearly designed by somebody who thought about the problem and
didn't automatically assume that'newer' or 'higher bit rate' implies
a
faster data transmission.
Good!
-tony
("Why would anyone want to go THAT SLOW
these days,
anyway?").
I visited a dot-comrade today on a farm in the country outside a
coastal city near me. He runs a small business doing industrial
equipment monitoring. His servers dial the factory machines via
ordinary 56kb modems -- but at 300 baud, to my considerable surprise.
The reason is a good one, though, and one I would not have readily
thought of. Modem negotiation is much quicker at such low speeds, and
with only hundreds of bytes to transfer -- if that -- the speeds are
not really an issue. Overall, this significantly lowers call times. 
17 Jun
17 Jun
9:54 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
Timely discussion - just last week Rob and I here in Vancouver got a
Model 28 teletype working and printing from a computer, in
preparation for a film production request.
The 28 teletype we are using has gears for 75 baud, so that's what we
needed to send (with 5 data bits and 1.5 (minimum) stop bits).
Rob brought along 3 serial converters, 2 of them wouldn't work for
some reason or other, but one successfully drove the 28. It's a model
GUC232A, and appears to be still available from Iogear.
I just did some further tests of the serial converter, observed on a
scope with the following outcome:
Requested Result
BPS
--------- ------
300 - good
150 - good
134 - produces 9600
110 - produces 9600
75 - good
50 - invalid-value error at runtime
Environment: python test program, MacOSX/10.4, G5 processor
So it can successully drive an older Model 28 down at 75-bps/5-bit,
but isn't going to work for the more-modern KSR-33 (110-bps/8-bit),
at least not from this environment. Could check it on Windows as it
might be a driver/parameters issue. One wonders whether the driver
programmer just didn't bother to calculate the divisors for the
oddball rates.
And there a KSR-33 here I wanted to use it on...
18 Jun
18 Jun
2:48 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
Timely discussion - just last week Rob and I here in Vancouver got a
Model 28 teletype working and printing from a computer, in
preparation for a film production request.
The 28 teletype we are using has gears for 75 baud, so that's what we
needed to send (with 5 data bits and 1.5 (minimum) stop bits).
That's touvched a nerve with me. Almost all my 5-bit stuff is 50 baud
apart from my Creed 444 (aka 'Telperinter 15') which has 75 baud gears in
it. To convert it would be trivial if I could get the gears. But it looks
like I will ahve to cut them myself, and they are skew helical gears.
What fun...
Rob brought along 3 serial converters, 2 of them wouldn't work for
some reason or other, but one successfully drove the 28. It's a model
GUC232A, and appears to be still available from Iogear.
I just did some further tests of the serial converter, observed on a
scope with the following outcome:
Requested Result
BPS
--------- ------
300 - good
150 - good
134 - produces 9600
110 - produces 9600
75 - good
50 - invalid-value error at runtime
Thers's a nice little project for somebody (given that USB is claimed to
be simple). Make a device with a USB port on one side (and which behaves
like a normal USB-RS23s converter) and which will do the slower baud
rates (it needn't go above 9600), including 110 and 45.45 baud.
-tony
4:33 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Jun 18, 2013, at 14:48, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
Thers's a nice little project for somebody (given
that USB is claimed to
be simple). Make a device with a USB port on one side (and which behaves
like a normal USB-RS23s converter) and which will do the slower baud
rates (it needn't go above 9600), including 110 and 45.45 baud.
USB is simple in a very limited sense, in that there are only two signal
wires and bit rate is auto-negotiated. Obviously, the auto-negotiation
itself is complex, but it's taken care of for you (so, again, a very limited
definition of "simple"). For example, what you've proposed is pretty
hard to do, starting with the fact that there are no "normal" serial
converters for USB; there are standard classes for things like mass
storage, audio converters and human interface devices, but absolutely
none for serial converters. So it's all custom, which means you either
have to make something which apes one of the popular existing chips
out there (which is both a monumental task and also probably doesn't
solve the problem because it's often in the drivers) or write your own
drivers to go along with your custom USB solution (which means you
have to support at least three OSes if you want to keep people from
whining, and you have to figure out how all those different Linux distros
want third-party drivers to be installed).
This obviously validates your point in a way. USB is simpler up to a
point, but it also very much depends on your metric for simplicity.
- Dave
19 Jun
19 Jun
3:25 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Jun 18, 2013, at 14:48, ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote:
THat comment was somewhat tongue-in-cheek based on Chucks comments on how
simple it is to make a USB slave device...
Thers's a nice little project for somebody
(given that USB is claimed to
be simple). Make a device with a USB port on one side (and which behaves
like a normal USB-RS23s converter) and which will do the slower baud
rates (it needn't go above 9600), including 110 and 45.45 baud.
USB is simple in a very limited sense, in that there are only two signal wires and bit rate is auto-negotiated. Obviously, the
auto-negotiation
itself is complex, but it's taken care of for you (so, again, a very limited
definition of "simple"). For example, what you've proposed is pretty
Most things become simple if somebody else does most of the work....
hard to do, starting with the fact that there are no
"normal" serial
converters for USB; there are standard classes for things like mass
storage, audio converters and human interface devices, but absolutely
none for serial converters. So it's all custom, which means you either
And I suppose there isn't a standard class for a simple chracter I/O
device....
have to make something which apes one of the popular
existing chips
out there (which is both a monumental task and also probably doesn't
solve the problem because it's often in the drivers) or write your own
drivers to go along with your custom USB solution (which means you
have to support at least three OSes if you want to keep people from
whining, and you have to figure out how all those different Linux distros
want third-party drivers to be installed).
Exactly... That's one reason why I have come to hate USB (there are
plenty of others).
OK, make said device appaear as an FTDI converter IC (since drivers for
that are pretty much standard) but with the required baud rates. Heck,
make it ignore whatever commands are used to set the baud rate but to
ahve eitehr an physical switch to select the baud trate or a pin to feed
in a 16* clock .
-tony
21 Jun
21 Jun
2:06 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On 19.06.2013 21:25, Tony Duell wrote:
Most things become simple if somebody else does most
of the work....
Yess :-)
OK, make said device appaear as an FTDI converter IC
(since drivers for
that are pretty much standard) but with the required baud rates. Heck,
make it ignore whatever commands are used to set the baud rate but to
ahve eitehr an physical switch to select the baud trate or a pin to feed
in a 16* clock .
That was the idea when I read the last posting: I could make a little board with
an original FTDI chip and a little AVR that does the serial part of the game.
Additionally I'd fit a jumper/switch to select the baud rate.
Serial IO via TTL on solder pads and an optionally installable MAX232.
Who would be willing to pay around EUR 25 for such a little board? Let me know!
If there are enough requests, I will make them.
Supported settings would be at least
5 bit, 1.5 stop bits: 45.45, 45.45, 50, 75, 100
5 bit, 2 stop bits: 45.45, 45.45, 50, 75, 100
8 bit, 2 stop bits: 110
On the PC side the software could set whatever baud rate it likes - would be
ignored.
Kind regards
Philipp
--
Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Philipp Hachtmann
Buchdruck, Bleisatz, Spezialit?ten
Alemannstr. 21, D-30165 Hannover
Tel. 0511/3522222, Mobil 0171/2632239
Fax. 0511/3500439
hachti at hachti.de
www.tiegeldruck.de
UStdID DE 202668329
2:53 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Jun 21, 2013, at 2:06 PM, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote:
On 19.06.2013 21:25, Tony Duell wrote:
Just make sure that whatever you use to do the conversion can recognize
a break signal from the FTDI chip and can send the same over its UART;
I don't recall about the AVRs, but I've worked with a number of micros
that just don't have a clue about break conditions.
Of course, if you're bit-banging the serial output, that part is solved
already. On the other side, though, if you're using one of the parallel
FIFO chips, I don't know if they handle the break condition at all, or
how if so.
- Dave
Most things become simple if somebody else does
most of the work....
Yess :-)
OK, make said device appaear as an FTDI converter
IC (since drivers for
that are pretty much standard) but with the required baud rates. Heck,
make it ignore whatever commands are used to set the baud rate but to
ahve eitehr an physical switch to select the baud trate or a pin to feed
in a 16* clock .
That was the idea when I read the last posting: I could make a little board with an
original FTDI chip and a little AVR that does the serial part of the game. Additionally
I'd fit a jumper/switch to select the baud rate.
Serial IO via TTL on solder pads and an optionally installable MAX232.
Who would be willing to pay around EUR 25 for such a little board? Let me know! If there
are enough requests, I will make them.
Supported settings would be at least
5 bit, 1.5 stop bits: 45.45, 45.45, 50, 75, 100
5 bit, 2 stop bits: 45.45, 45.45, 50, 75, 100
8 bit, 2 stop bits: 110
On the PC side the software could set whatever baud rate it likes - would be ignored.
2:37 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 2:25 PM, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
My understanding is, the HID device class is somewhat standardized for
keyboards, joysticks, mice and the like, where no specific driver is
necessary apart from what's built-in typically to the OS, but other things
like an RS-232 passthrough for example there are more or less "standard"
drivers for, or at least generic ones that you can leverage, provided you
can give enough detail about the device during enumeration and which driver
to use. I did a little class through Freescale to do a serial device and
both Windows and Ubuntu had driver capability that you could interface
with, but you still needed to equate the vendor id/device id to the proper
driver through an .inf file in the case of Windows, and I can't recall what
you had to do through Ubuntu, but a driver was available there to be used
as well.
I've been wanting to stick my toe in and develop something for USB for a
while (a USB->Coleco ADAMNet adapter to allow use of actual devices with an
emulator), but ultimately I think I'd like to be able to offer it up to the
community easily. One stumbling block in there has already been mentioned:
vendor IDs are controlled by the USB-IF, and if you want one of your very
own, it'll cost you $2000 to get it (last I checked), more if you want to
use the USB logo (who cares?), but the $2k is a significant hurdle for the
tinkerer. I suppose you could pick VIDs that don't clash with whatever
devices you have installed on the machine, but then that takes away from
the universal nature of the USB...
hard to do, starting with the fact that there are
no "normal" serial
converters for USB; there are standard classes for things like mass
storage, audio converters and human interface devices, but absolutely
none for serial converters. So it's all custom, which means you either
And I suppose there isn't a standard class for a simple chracter I/O
device....
2:53 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Jun 21, 2013, at 2:37 PM, Geoffrey Oltmans <oltmansg at gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 2:25 PM, Tony Duell <ard at
p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
My understanding is, the HID device class is somewhat standardized for
keyboards, joysticks, mice and the like, where no specific driver is
necessary apart from what's built-in typically to the OS, but other things
like an RS-232 passthrough for example there are more or less "standard"
drivers for, or at least generic ones that you can leverage, provided you
can give enough detail about the device during enumeration and which driver
to use. I did a little class through Freescale to do a serial device and
both Windows and Ubuntu had driver capability that you could interface
with, but you still needed to equate the vendor id/device id to the proper
driver through an .inf file in the case of Windows, and I can't recall what
you had to do through Ubuntu, but a driver was available there to be used
as well.
Correct, there's no "standard" for an RS-232. You can spit characters
out over an endpoint with no problem, but you obviously need some out-
of-band stuff for controlling and monitoring modem control lines and
break conditions. That's where things start to get a little hairy. My
assumption is that since USB was intended to "replace" RS232, they
weren't exactly keen to define a standard for adaptors (which is,
honestly, a little shortsighted if it's the case).
hard to do, starting with the fact that there are
no "normal" serial
converters for USB; there are standard classes for things like mass
storage, audio converters and human interface devices, but absolutely
none for serial converters. So it's all custom, which means you either
And I suppose there isn't a standard class for a simple chracter I/O
device....
I've been wanting to stick my toe in and develop
something for USB for a
while (a USB->Coleco ADAMNet adapter to allow use of actual devices with an
emulator), but ultimately I think I'd like to be able to offer it up to the
community easily. One stumbling block in there has already been mentioned:
vendor IDs are controlled by the USB-IF, and if you want one of your very
own, it'll cost you $2000 to get it (last I checked), more if you want to
use the USB logo (who cares?), but the $2k is a significant hurdle for the
tinkerer. I suppose you could pick VIDs that don't clash with whatever
devices you have installed on the machine, but then that takes away from
the universal nature of the USB...
That's $2k PERIODICALLY so that they maintain your number. Last I
checked, anyway. Not a one-time fee. It's a big hurdle towards
developing your own hardware on a pretty common bus (similar problems
exist for PCI). And with only 16 bits of address space, there's no
reliable way to generate your own universally unique ID (one of the
few times you'll see me advocating for the use of UUIDs).
- Dave
3:18 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 1:53 PM, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
That's $2k PERIODICALLY so that they maintain your number. Last I
checked, anyway. Not a one-time fee. It's a big hurdle towards
developing your own hardware on a pretty common bus (similar problems
exist for PCI). And with only 16 bits of address space, there's no
reliable way to generate your own universally unique ID (one of the
few times you'll see me advocating for the use of UUIDs).
Looks like our information is slightly out of date...
http://www.usb.org/developers/vendor/
"If you are a new USB product developer looking to get a vendor ID for your
company, there are two preferred options for doing this:
*1)* Become a member of the USB-IF. Among the many
benefits<http://www.usb.org/members_landing#benefits>of being a member
is the assignment of a vendor ID to your company (if one
has not been previously assigned). The annual membership fee is US$4,000.
Download the membership
application<http://www.usb.org/developers/USB-IF_Member_Agreement_070912…df>.
*2)* Become a USB-IF non-member logo licensee. Logo licensees are eligible
to use the USB logo in conjunction with products that pass USB-IF
compliance testing. In addition, you must also purchase a vendor ID if one
has not been previously assigned to your company. The licensing fee is
US$3,500 for a two year term (this fee is waived for USB-IF members). Click
on the link to download the Logo Trademark License
Agreement<http://www.usb.org/developers/logo_license/>andvendor ID
form<http://www.usb.org/developers/vendor/VID_Only_Form_withCCAuth_01011…
order to become a logo licensee. If your company does not already have
a
Vendor ID number, your company must execute and return the Vendor ID form
along with your USB-IF Trademark License Agreement. The Vendor ID
is US$5,000. Please keep in mind that becoming a USB-IF Logo Licensee alone
does not entitle your company to USB-IF membership benefits.
If you would like to purchase a vendor
ID<http://www.usb.org/developers/vendor/VID_Only_Form_withCCAuth_010113.…
signing the logo license agreement, the fee for this purchase is
US$5,000. If you do not execute the logo license agreement, you are not
authorized to use the USB logo in conjunction with your products regardless
of their testing status.
"
So the way I read that, $4k will get you a membership to the USB-IF for two
years plus a VID if you don't have one, and option 2, pay $5k and get just
the ID. Wow... so the VID has inflated to $5k. I distinctly remember it
being $2k before.
3:49 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Jun 21, 2013, at 3:18 PM, Geoffrey Oltmans <oltmansg at gmail.com> wrote:
*1)* Become a member of the USB-IF. Among the many
So the way I read that, $4k will get you a membership to the USB-IF for two
years plus a VID if you don't have one, and option 2, pay $5k and get just
the ID. Wow... so the VID has inflated to $5k. I distinctly remember it
being $2k before.
$4k/year, or $3.5k/2 years plus 5k/ID (no idea if that's annual or not).
Either way... OUCH. I remember $2k as well, but that was also from 2006
when we were looking into PCI as well, so it's not surprising that it's
somewhat inflated now.
- Dave
4:40 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 2:49 PM, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
On Jun 21, 2013, at 3:18 PM, Geoffrey Oltmans <oltmansg at gmail.com> wrote:
Yeah, the $3.5k/2 years just allows you to use the USB logo on top of
paying for the VID. You can't use the logo in advertising or on the device
itself unless you're a member of the USB-IF. You can however label the
interface with plain text "USB" without paying that IIRC. Seems like it
would be pretty dumb to buy the VID outright when you can pay $4k, be able
to use the logo (at least for the two years) and get a "free" VID for $1000
less.
*1)* Become a member of the USB-IF. Among the
many
So the way I read that, $4k will get you a membership to the USB-IF for
two
years plus a VID if you don't have one, and
option 2, pay $5k and get
just
the ID. Wow... so the VID has inflated to $5k. I
distinctly remember it
being $2k before.
$4k/year, or $3.5k/2 years plus 5k/ID (no idea if that's annual or not).
Either way... OUCH. I remember $2k as well, but that was also from 2006
when we were looking into PCI as well, so it's not surprising that it's
somewhat inflated now.
3:25 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On 06/21/2013 11:53 AM, David Riley wrote:
That's $2k PERIODICALLY so that they maintain your
number. Last I
checked, anyway. Not a one-time fee. It's a big hurdle towards
developing your own hardware on a pretty common bus (similar problems
exist for PCI). And with only 16 bits of address space, there's no
reliable way to generate your own universally unique ID (one of the
few times you'll see me advocating for the use of UUIDs).
Well, to be fair, Microchip and FTDI both have sub-license programs that
are available for little more than asking.
Or you can copy the Chinese scheme--pull the VID and PID out of thin air
or just piggyback your PID on to some defunct (or non-defunct) company's
VID.
You can witness how common this practice is by browsing the IDs at
https://usb-ids.gowdy.us/read/UD/.
"Nebraska Furniture Mart?" Really?
--Chuck
4:17 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Fri, 21 Jun 2013 14:53:26 -0400
David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
There are vendors where you can sublicence a single VID / PID
pair.
E.g. from Microchip Inc., though this licence is only valid if you use
it with a Microchip chip.
--
\end{Jochen}
\ref{http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/}
Correct, there's no "standard" for an
RS-232.
There is: USB CDC. There is an Ethernet like CDC device class and a
"modem" (read RS232) CDC device class. There are some USB to RS232
adapters like those from FTDI that are not CDC as these things have
advanced capabilities. (Some of the FTDI chips can talk RS232 and SPI,
JTAG, ...)
I used this hardware: http://ladyada.net/products/atmega32u4breakout/
with this software: http://www.fourwalledcubicle.com/LUFA.php
to build a USB RS232 CDC controler for a 8 x 12 pixel RGB LED matrix.
The USB interfacing was close to trivial, given the excelent examples
in LUFA. The matix apears just as an ordinary serial port. At least
with NetBSD.
There is a "free" (GPL) USB library for AVRs that does USB entirely in
software: http://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html
I use a USBasp: http://www.fischl.de/usbasp/ for AVR programming.
USBasp is based on VUSB and works well. It is even faster then my AVR
Dragon.
vendor IDs are
controlled by the USB-IF, and if you want one of your very
own, it'll cost you $2000 to get it
That's $2k PERIODICALLY so that they
maintain your number. 
18 Jun
18 Jun
4:47 p.m.
New subject: USB serial converters / Re: USB
On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 07:48:35PM +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
[...]
Thers's a nice little project for somebody (given
that USB is claimed to be
simple). Make a device with a USB port on one side (and which behaves like a
normal USB-RS23s converter) and which will do the slower baud rates (it
needn't go above 9600), including 110 and 45.45 baud.
The software side is trivial :)
The Arduino Uno has actually replaced its FTDI USB-serial chip with a small AVR
microcontroller that does the same job. So it's just a case of grabbing the
source code, fixing any bugs related to very slow baud rates, and writing it to
a chip.
By far the hardest bit for me would be to design a suitable circuit and
assemble the components on a bit of stripboard. I'm not even sure where my
soldering iron is as I haven't used it in years...
17 Jun
17 Jun
9:54 p.m.
I've
experienced this, trying to use a USB serial adapter in place of an
ASR-33 to serve up an imaged paper tape on a PDP-8/e. It does not work.
It's an interesting question as to why this is a problem. :-)
Is it because of baud (bit) rate or an incompatibility? If the former, most baud rate generators won't
generate 110 unless specific
crystals/divisors are chosen. Otherwise they'll start at 300.
If the latter, I've found that some USB serial adapters aren't friendly to
classic
gear. I haven't thrown an analyzer between them to figure it out. I've found
some that seem to work most often (Belkin springs to mind...still doesn't
support 110 though).
I have made some strange serial port experiences - under Linux. Can't speak for
the Windows world.
1. I see no general incompatibility between real or USB serial ports on a PC and
a PDP8. The RIM and BIN loaders can cope with at least 19200 baud. Probably even
more. Without any handshake. And KL8E for example works at 19200 without any
problem. You don't have to stick with 110...
2. I am a Linux user. And I have encountered one big problem with Linux and
serial ports: If I send a file down the port via cat, the transfer stops
immediately when cat closes the port. The data in the FIFO or anywhere between
the application and the UART seem to be lost.
I have not always seen those problems. On my current Linux 3.4.5 box I can cat
and everything works fine.
One fix back when I had problems on my notebook was to disable the FIFO in the
8250 driver.
Another one is something like doing a
(cat <file>; sleep 0.1) > /dev/ttyXX
Then You open a subshell which has its output connected to the port. And the
delay makes it possible to drain all buffers before the port is closed.
BTW with Omni-USB all these problems are UNKNOWN :-)
Kind regards
Philipp
--
Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Philipp Hachtmann
Buchdruck, Bleisatz, Spezialit?ten
Alemannstr. 21, D-30165 Hannover
Tel. 0511/3522222, Mobil 0171/2632239
Fax. 0511/3500439
hachti at hachti.de
www.tiegeldruck.de
UStdID DE 202668329
10:22 p.m.
On Jun 17, 2013, at 9:54 PM, Philipp Hachtmann <hachti at hachti.de> wrote:
2. I am a Linux user. And I have encountered one big
problem with Linux and serial ports: If I send a file down the port via cat, the transfer
stops immediately when cat closes the port. The data in the FIFO or anywhere between the
application and the UART seem to be lost.
I have not always seen those problems. On my current Linux 3.4.5 box I can cat and
everything works fine.
One fix back when I had problems on my notebook was to disable the FIFO in the 8250
driver.
Another one is something like doing a
(cat <file>; sleep 0.1) > /dev/ttyXX
Then You open a subshell which has its output connected to the port. And the delay makes
it possible to drain all buffers before the port is closed.
How about with dd? Seems that would try to drain buffers before closing.
- Dave
18 Jun
18 Jun
9:27 a.m.
On 18.06.2013 04:22, David Riley wrote:
How about with dd? Seems that would try to drain
buffers before closing.
I think I remember that doing a tcdrain did not change the problem. It was quite
frustrating.
Philipp
--
Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Philipp Hachtmann
Buchdruck, Bleisatz, Spezialit?ten
Alemannstr. 21, D-30165 Hannover
Tel. 0511/3522222, Mobil 0171/2632239
Fax. 0511/3500439
hachti at hachti.de
www.tiegeldruck.de
UStdID DE 202668329
17 Jun
17 Jun
3:14 p.m.
I've experienced this, trying to use a USB serial
adapter in place of an
ASR-33 to serve up an imaged paper tape on a PDP-8/e. It does not work.
It's an interesting question as to why this is a problem. :-)
AMny of the trditioal baud rates form a doubling sequence -- 75, 150,
300, 600, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200. At onme time lesser serial
interfaces jsut had the appropraite crystal and a binary divider chain
and thus couldn;t do 110 baud. I can remember the fun a friend and I had
trying to get a BBC micro to talk to an ASR33. We had to bit-bang 110
baud...
But surely it doesn;'t take much more logig to implement 110 baud, not
compared to what is needed for USB. SO that probably isn;t the reason.
More likehy they assumed that 'nobody' would want to use 110 baud. Heck,
I've seen devices that won't go slower than 9600 baud.
Another issue with emulating the paper tape reader is that DEC and others
(HP, Intel) added a relay to the ASR 33 to allow the computer to control
the tape. Unless you find soem way of controleldi nthe RS232 interface --
and get it to stop at the end of that chracter, not send a few more
(there is no bufering on the DEC boards) you may well be loosing the odd
character.
-tony
10:02 p.m.
On 17.06.2013 21:14, Tony Duell wrote:
Another issue with emulating the paper tape reader is
that DEC and others
(HP, Intel) added a relay to the ASR 33 to allow the computer to control
the tape.
Not important. Just start the transmission when the loader is already
running.
That's it.
Unless you find soem way of controleldi nthe RS232
interface --
and get it to stop at the end of that chracter, not send a few more
(there is no bufering on the DEC boards) you may well be loosing the odd
character.
No, that's just proven wrong. The RIM and BIN loaders will not lose any
character at port speeds up to 19200 baud. I am not sure if 38400 or more will
work that smoothly as well.
I usually have my terminal KL8E at 9600 baud and I use it on a regular basis to
load RIM and BIN files. In fact, I use a bootstrap card with RIM. And then put a
"special" homebrew version of the BIN loader down the line that immediately
jumps into the BIN loader after loading. So I can load a complete application
with one keypress on the 8 and using my "rb <filename.bin>" script on the
PC side.
Forget about lost characters. Just FORGET that.
:-)
--
Dipl.-Inf. (FH) Philipp Hachtmann
Buchdruck, Bleisatz, Spezialit?ten
Alemannstr. 21, D-30165 Hannover
Tel. 0511/3522222, Mobil 0171/2632239
Fax. 0511/3500439
hachti at hachti.de
www.tiegeldruck.de
UStdID DE 202668329
10:22 a.m.
On 6/16/2013 7:00 PM, Tom Watson wrote:
On 6/15/2013 10:37 PM, Ben wrote:
Only one problem there, most (if not all) EIA-232 adapters for USB won't go below 300
Baud. It is a problem when trying to get the old ASR33 to type things out!
Of course you need to also add two stop bits, but that is pretty easy (as he notes the
only place two stop bits were used was for the 33/35 teletypes).
That email was made in Jest. Ben.
On 6/15/2013 8:48 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
> That bothers me too...I'm accumulating adapters and gender > changers
> though. ;)
>
USB has RS232 adapters, now you can have the best
of both worlds.
2 GHZ download for your 110 baud TTY.
> -tony
Ben.
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