Need help with Atari 800 & Lantronix MSS-100 Setup

[Banquo]

A while back I decided I wanted to get my 800 online so I started ordering parts. My Lantronic MSS-100 arrived today so I finally had everything I needed, or so I thought. I could not find any gender changers in my box of parts; I was sure I had one but I guess it has vanished. I did find a Radio Shack Data Switch however and thought "I bet this would work". Maybe, maybe not?

 

I currently have my Atari 800 connected to the 850 interface, and the 850 is connected to the Radio Shack data switch with an Atari CX-88 null modem cable, and the switch is connected to the MSS-100. I can see the Lantronix from my PC just fine, but I'm not sure if my Atari is connecting to it. The serial light on the MSS-100 is not active at all. Is the data switch not passing everything through correctly or am I doing something else wrong. I've booted up Bobterm on my 800 but at this point I have no idea what to do next. Here's a photo of the setup. Any ideas?

[+DrVenkman]

My guess is that your Radio Shack widget isn't passing through all the signals in the right way. Just buy a proper pass-through gender changer and connect to the R1: port on the 850 directly.

[Banquo]

Yeah I'm afraid that might be the problem too. I think it was meant for printers so it probably isn't going to work for this. I'll go ahead and order a proper gender changer for it and try again next week. I need to read up on how to use Bob Term to connect to a BBS anyway. I also forgot to mention that the MSS-100 is using the default settings so I'm not sure if I need to configure anything on it or not. It looks like the firmware is out of date too.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2018 by Banquo

[_The Doctor__]

You will want ICE-T, TLP, etc...and the later Bobterms...

avoid versions made to 'work better on emulators' as they got around emu issues and created issues for real hardware... fact is the issues have finally been addressed on the emulation front, I wish that atr of the emulation friendly bobterm would go away forever... it's like a bad meal that just keeps turning up...

I've posted wiring and tips for a number of lantronix boxes in the pinned BBS thread as have others, you might want to check out what's there...

 

Always be careful when updating the different lantronix modules, they all look the same on the outside but can be different on the inside. the lantronix site has helpful hints on serial numbers and dates as well as revisions to keep you in the correct firmwares

 

I'd start at 2400 and then 4800 baud.... after you've got that go for 9600... TLP is 2400 max.. most BBS can do 9600, and you only get 19,2 with other solutions they usually do well with hardware flow control at that rate.

Edited March 9, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[Banquo]

I'll check to make sure I have the latest version and get a copy of Ice-T too. I guess I will leave the firmware alone for now unless there's some reason it needs to be updated. I'll be sure to read the BBS thread too, thanks!

[Banquo]

My gender changer arrived today, doesn't seem to have changed a thing though. I hooked it all up, turned on my 850, booted my 800 up to my BobTerm 1.21 disk, but the serial light on the Lantronix still doesn't do anything. I'm not sure if it's even working or not because I have no idea what I'm doing once I get into the terminal program. I'm afraid this is all way over my head.

 

Edit: Ok I messed around a while and after setting the baud rate to 9600 I was able to type in the terminal. I typed HELP and it says "Lantronix MSS100 Help Menu" so apparently my Atari is connected to it. Then things are kind of garbled and it says "The folwigcma aeavia", not sure what's going on there. Like I said I am clueless at this and can't find any idiots guides that tell me what to do once I boot up the terminal.

 

Edit 2: Ooh, I'm getting somewhere. I logged into the Lantronix from my PC and set the baud rate from 9600 down to 1200. Set it to the same on the Atari and now stuff is coming through correctly and no longer gibberish. I guess 9600 was too fast. Now I can actually read the help menu and topics. Maybe I will get this figured out eventually. Just typed ping www.google.com in BobTerm and it's working, yay! Now if I can just figure out how to connect to a bbs.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Banquo

[Banquo]

My Atari is now online and I've connected to a BBS for my very first time! It turns out I need to log into my MSS100 and change some settings, especially enabling modem emulation which it turns out is very important. This guide helped me out a lot. I also logged into it from Filezilla and updated the firmware which turned out to be very simple; just dragged the new firmware file over and it did the rest. Things are still a little flaky sometimes, like when I first boot up to Bob Term it will not let me type anything into the terminal at first. After a while it will finally work though, and also I sometimes get a No Carrier error. Once it stops being stubborn though everything works great; I found a very active BBS and made an account, read lots of posts, posted my first message, played a few games and had a lot of fun.