Fair price and ways to find a teletype

[Chuck Guzis]

On 10/15/2015 10:58 PM, Brent Hilpert wrote:


> But working from OSX unix system-call level to a plastic-encapsulated
> USB-serial dongle, I was pleasantly surprised that "75" was accepted
> by the IO/device driver. IIRC, it didn't accept 110 or other values
> outside the divide-by-2 sequence, and 75 was the final. So it wasn't
> a general frequency-to-period calculation from a high-res timer.
> Maybe it was a factor-of-two calculation that hit the counter
> resolution limit at 75, or the driver writer actually included 75 in
> a table lookup.

All USB-to-RS232 bridge chips appear to derive their BRG base from a 
12MHz internal oscillator.  In spite of some folks' high opinion of FTDI 
chips, they're far from the most flexible.  The FT231x, for example, 
bottoms out at 183.1 bps.

On the other hand, the rather "prolific" Prolific PL2303, found on many 
cheap Chinese adapters does, in fact, bottom out at 75 bps with the 
standard driver.  Apparently, custom/nonstandard rates are also 
possible, but the datasheet specifies that Prolific needs to be 
contacted for details.  I suspect that this involves an NDA.

The Nanjing Qin Heng CH340, also found on inexpensive adapters, reached 
down to 50 bps.

The Microchip MCP2200 appears to bottom out at 300 bps as well, but 
there's a configuration utility available (according to the datasheet) 
that allows for non-standard rates.  No mention of the minimum, however

At first blush, it seems that cheap Chinese converters could be your 
friend in this case.

The USB-to-TTL dongles that I pay around $1 for shipped from eBay use 
the PL2303.  Perhaps one could form the basis of a current loop to USB 
interface.

FWIW
Chuck