manopac Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 Well, maybe its not $1, but $18 seems fairly inexpensive to me. I purchased this adapter: http://www.usbgear.com/USBG-232.html anyone got an idea if those are available in Europe somewhere ? (or in a US shop which ships international ...) thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 Well, maybe its not $1, but $18 seems fairly inexpensive to me. I purchased this adapter: http://www.usbgear.com/USBG-232.html anyone got an idea if those are available in Europe somewhere ? (or in a US shop which ships international ...) Not these adapters, but as I wrote in earlier posts the Digitus DA-70146 (and most certainly also 70156) also work fine. Your Location: says Vienna, so just visit Primus Data, they have the Digitus adapters on stock for EUR 9.90. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manopac Posted April 25, 2010 Share Posted April 25, 2010 Not these adapters, but as I wrote in earlier posts the Digitus DA-70146 (and most certainly also 70156) also work fine. Your Location: says Vienna, so just visit Primus Data, they have the Digitus adapters on stock for EUR 9.90. so long, Hias thanks a lot ! thats basically around the corner of my office will go there tomorrow ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted June 11, 2010 Share Posted June 11, 2010 Thought I'd give your version 0.6 a try, so I got out my Atarimax RS-232 dual interface. On my system (Intel Core 2 Duo 6300, on-board serial port), it works fine at 19.2. At 3X, it's quite stable using Hias' HISIO 1.20 patch. Once in a great while I get an error message that it can't set the port speed to 57.6 so drops back to 19.2. I can only get 19.2 using SDX. IIRC, the only combination that I had trouble using with Atari810 was the internal UltraSpeed of the Black Box system or the USP+ OS (both from CSS). I don't believe that Retrobits ever got that worked out. (?) As I remember, it worked very well with Sparta. I mention this only because several posts have indicated issues with Atari810. -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodByteXL Posted June 13, 2010 Share Posted June 13, 2010 (edited) Hi, AspeQt 0.6 is now available. You can download it here. This release adds language selection and polish translation (see the previous post) and small fixes (mainly related to .cas support and GUI). The language is automatically selected based on your locale but you can manually override it from Tools/Options/Internationalization. Many thanks to Krzysztof Pyrkosz for adding language selection, polish translation and many other fixes and improvements. Thanks for writing this software. I use it for 4 month now and I must say it works very well with any DOS and XL/XE having normal ATARI OS up to SIO 3x. My hombrew SIO2PC devices being older than a decade are perfectly running with it. I use the Win32 version. Edited June 13, 2010 by GoodByteXL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrnukem Posted June 25, 2010 Share Posted June 25, 2010 Was using the Atarimax software package since I bought the SIO2RS232 adapter from them but after I upgraded to Windows 7 that software no longer worked and Aratmax did not have any Windows 7 support. Grabbed this and it had been working great under Windows 7 for me for a few months now so thank you very much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zaxon Posted July 2, 2010 Share Posted July 2, 2010 (edited) Uff simple USB cable, works great with AspeQt, max transfer is approx 125 kb(with hija path of course) , http://www.zaxon.eu/sio2usb.html, read and save perfectly with 5 meters USB cable,but problem is in software, this cable not working with APE, works great with other, so somethong wrong is with Atarimax soft. Quick wiev how my cable working with my Atari, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PbJBK8tWjU , super fast speed, free eprom with patched os and extra os aviable,what else? Edited July 2, 2010 by zaxon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EightBitWitch Posted July 2, 2010 Share Posted July 2, 2010 (edited) It think AspeQT is the modern kind of SIO2PC-Software. When i right informed, APE have no Win7-Support. Zaxon: How much cost your Cable (with Shipping to Germany), what is included (SIO-Jack ?), accept you paypal? Valerie Edited July 2, 2010 by EightBitWitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchennau Posted July 2, 2010 Share Posted July 2, 2010 It think AspeQT is the modern kind of SIO2PC-Software. When i right informed, APE have no Win7-Support. Zaxon: How much cost your Cable (with Shipping to Germany), what is included (SIO-Jack ?), accept you paypal? Valerie I confirm that APE DOES work on my Window 7 64 bit machine. Can someone confirm that the AtariMax SIO2PC does NOT work with AspeQt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EightBitWitch Posted July 2, 2010 Share Posted July 2, 2010 (edited) Little Question: Do you mean the USB-Type or both Types of SIO2PC from AtariMax? That are also interesting for me. Valerie I confirm that APE DOES work on my Window 7 64 bit machine. Can someone confirm that the AtariMax SIO2PC does NOT work with AspeQt? Edited July 3, 2010 by EightBitWitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchennau Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 Little Question: Do you mean the USB-Type or both Types of SIO2PC from AtariMax? That are also interesting for me. Valerie I confirm that APE DOES work on my Window 7 64 bit machine. Can someone confirm that the AtariMax SIO2PC does NOT work with AspeQt? Sorry I should have been more clear. I can confirm that APE DOES work with Window 7 64 bit machine with the SIO2PC (USB) eddition. I do not have the SIO2PC serial version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EightBitWitch Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 (edited) On AtariMax-Website i read The USB version of this interface is a native full speed USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 compatible device with an onboard 48mhz MPU with field upgradeable firmware. The USB version of the interface is currently supported by APE for Windows version 3.0.0 or higher, running on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7.[...] The RS232/Serial version of the interface is compatible with all SIO2PC/APE style software, supporting RI, DSR and CTS style signalling without the use of any jumpers or dip switches. The RS232/Serial port version of this interface is supported by APE for Windows, APE for DOS and many other SIO2PC programs for DOS, Windows, Linux and OSX. On AspeQT-Website i read If you opt for the later, please note that the "AtariMax SIO2PC Univeral Interface USB Edition" is not supported (RS-232 edition should be fine). I understand i so, that the AtariMax SIO2PC (USB-Edition) don't works with (generally) SIO2PC-Software like AspeQT, it works only with APE. Me interested the reason, why it should only works with APE. It is a Design-Problem (no FTDI-Chip) because it is any earlier development, or have it a not disclosed USB-Communicationprotocol? Is it a so special Device, that exist no generally virtual COM-Driver? Edited July 3, 2010 by EightBitWitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchennau Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 I understand i so, that the AtariMax SIO2PC (USB-Edition) don't works with (generally) SIO2PC-Software like AspeQT, it works only with APE. Me interested the reason, why it should only works with APE. It is a Design-Problem (no FTDI-Chip) because it is any earlier development, or have it a not disclosed USB-Communicationprotocol? Is it a so special Device, that exist no generally virtual COM-Driver? My guess is that the USB-Communication protocol is difficult to map over to a virtual com-driver. I suspect that it requires not only a software level device driver but an actual hardware device as well. I think the option is to simply ask Steve Tucker to see if he has any programmatic approaches as the SIO2PC (USB) should take of the hardware side of the problem. Or maybe not. I'm way out of my field and without access to the source code and the appropriate development tools I can only postulate as to how to bridge this gap. I am guessing the plug and play nature of USB is what is making this difficult to map over to the legacy com port (virtual). Thus it may require the emulators to start supporting USB devices. If that is the case I'm fairly sure none of the maintainer would have a high level of interest in adding the functionality given the low return on investment. If I were going to tackle the problem I would probably start with a Linux based atari emulator and and build in USB support. I'd give up on Windows 7 entirely because Microsoft is a mystery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted July 3, 2010 Share Posted July 3, 2010 I understand i so, that the AtariMax SIO2PC (USB-Edition) don't works with (generally) SIO2PC-Software like AspeQT, it works only with APE. Yes, this is correct. Me interested the reason, why it should only works with APE. It is a Design-Problem (no FTDI-Chip) because it is any earlier development, or have it a not disclosed USB-Communicationprotocol? Is it a so special Device, that exist no generally virtual COM-Driver? The Atarimax SIO2PC USB is not just a simple USB-to-serial adapter but it contains a microcontroller that handles the timing critical parts of the SIO protocol (plus some other stuff like tape interfacing/control etc). This makes operations much more reliable, but - unfortunately - the interface uses a proprietary undocumented protocol which makes it (next to) impossible to use it with other software than APE. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted July 20, 2010 Share Posted July 20, 2010 I understand i so, that the AtariMax SIO2PC (USB-Edition) don't works with (generally) SIO2PC-Software like AspeQT, it works only with APE. Yes, this is correct. Me interested the reason, why it should only works with APE. It is a Design-Problem (no FTDI-Chip) because it is any earlier development, or have it a not disclosed USB-Communicationprotocol? Is it a so special Device, that exist no generally virtual COM-Driver? The Atarimax SIO2PC USB is not just a simple USB-to-serial adapter but it contains a microcontroller that handles the timing critical parts of the SIO protocol (plus some other stuff like tape interfacing/control etc). This makes operations much more reliable, but - unfortunately - the interface uses a proprietary undocumented protocol which makes it (next to) impossible to use it with other software than APE. so long, Hias maybe comOcon can be used to help solve this, virtual serial ports and remapping http://sourceforge.net/projects/com0com/support http://com0com.sourceforge.net/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/com0com/ this all may be over complicating the problem based on the way ape works with both devices . usb\vid_107c&pid_1050 usb5200 usb compatible id's are also listed Just a place to start. wireless usb devices are said to be plug and play with the sio2pc usb, maybe if one watches the wireless traffic at a slow rate some answers will reveal themselves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 maybe comOcon can be used to help solve this, virtual serial ports and remapping Nah, this wont help with SIO2PC USB as it's not a standard serial device. You'd need other tools like USB sniffers. They are available, too, even for free. It would be no problem to hook up a sniffer in Linux (using usbmon, for example) and analyze the USB traffic of APE running inside a VirtualBox or VMware. BUT: Reverse engineering the USB protocol is a hell of a job. And I will never spend the $100 (or so) for the SIO2PC USB plus APE, plus some 100-200 hours (or even more) of unpaid work just to know what a proprietary interface is doing. Either Steve releases the docs plus sample code (as he told when he released the SIO2PC USB interface) or it won't be supported in other software. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EightBitWitch Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 (edited) I have read on AtariMax.com, as i receive my SIO2PC(USB) and RTFM, that Steve Tucker will in the future open the Protocoll and publish a Documentation, so that that SIO2PC-Software can use the USB-Version. It seems a Time-Problem, Steve Tucker is busy. As time allows, developer documentation will be posted to this space so other SIO2PC programs can be modified to support the interface Edited July 22, 2010 by EightBitWitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 I have read on AtariMax.com, as i receive my SIO2PC(USB) and RTFM, that Steve Tucker will in the future open the Protocoll and publish a Documentation, so that that SIO2PC-Software can use the USB-Version. It seems a Time-Problem, Steve Tucker is busy. As time allows, developer documentation will be posted to this space so other SIO2PC programs can be modified to support the interface Maybe he'll do this at some point in the future, but I wouldn't bet too much on it. People are waiting for these docs for almost 3 years now: http://www.atarimax.com/flashcart/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=681 Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Steve - on the contrary - I think he sells great products and also offers excellent support - just not to third-party developers. We (third-party developers) had a history of missing docs that caused a lot of trouble and work to get things running. Most of the time it was just a few tiny bits of missing specs that caused the pain. Two examples: The "autosensing" universal SIO2PC/1050-2-PC serial interface wasn't that autosensing at all but required to toggle a serial control line to switch between modes (and to get it running at all): http://www.atarimax.com/flashcart/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=570, especially this posting by buzz. APE provides several additional SIO commands, for example one to read the time from the PC (using a small program called APETIME on the Atari). These commands aren't officially documented, so I had to reverse-engineer APETIME to implement it into AtariSIO. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EightBitWitch Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 I had not know, that the actual Situation are so bad. I understand the Problems for Third-party Developers and it makes me angry. SIO2PC USB ist a fine piece of Hardware, but use only with APE makes me not happy. I not ready pay $50 for APE, it's to expensive in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 I had not know, that the actual Situation are so bad. I understand the Problems for Third-party Developers and it makes me angry. SIO2PC USB ist a fine piece of Hardware, but use only with APE makes me not happy. I not ready pay $50 for APE, it's to expensive in my opinion. It's too bad. One might imagine that the ability to use SIO2PC USB with a third-party peripheral emulator might widen the market for the hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 I have read on AtariMax.com, as i receive my SIO2PC(USB) and RTFM, that Steve Tucker will in the future open the Protocoll and publish a Documentation, so that that SIO2PC-Software can use the USB-Version. It seems a Time-Problem, Steve Tucker is busy. As time allows, developer documentation will be posted to this space so other SIO2PC programs can be modified to support the interface Maybe he'll do this at some point in the future, but I wouldn't bet too much on it. People are waiting for these docs for almost 3 years now: http://www.atarimax.com/flashcart/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=681 Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Steve - on the contrary - I think he sells great products and also offers excellent support - just not to third-party developers. I plan to just add a VCP endpoint to the device so it can work with programs that only want an RS232 port. The current version of APE also support VCP devices like FTDI chips so if time does not run out before I have to return to classes, I will work on it. Also 'Standard' class devices like VCP endpoints do not require a $500/yr corporate signing certificate to work on Windows Vista and Windows 7, which would be an advantage to me. Actually, when I designed the USB interface there were no good VCP chips. If I knew FTDI would finally release a driver that didn't regularly bugcheck every system it was installed on I would have saved myself a lot of trouble and just used those. But then again I'm probably the only person here who remembers how slow and unstable those drivers were until recently. I loaded the newest drivers to try with a FT232R interface and it worked reasonably well. It was a little laggy and glitchy, it got stuck holding TX low a couple of times but never caused a BSOD. We (third-party developers) had a history of missing docs that caused a lot of trouble and work to get things running. Most of the time it was just a few tiny bits of missing specs that caused the pain. Two examples: The "autosensing" universal SIO2PC/1050-2-PC serial interface wasn't that autosensing at all but required to toggle a serial control line to switch between modes (and to get it running at all): http://www.atarimax.com/flashcart/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=570, especially this posting by buzz. If you define 'auto-sensing' as 'able to sense which of APE or ProSystem is running', then it is true. In fact I'm not sure what else you would expect it to sense based on my description? APE provides several additional SIO commands, for example one to read the time from the PC (using a small program called APETIME on the Atari). These commands aren't officially documented, so I had to reverse-engineer APETIME to implement it into AtariSIO. Here is an e-mail I sent to someone who asked about it 11 years ago in 1999, in case anyone else wants to save the trouble. There is other free code out there based on this code available as well. I tried to search for bits of the code in Google and Google Groups but I could not find it there. I believe it was made to compile with TASM but should work with any two pass assembler. Steve -- Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 14:57:21 -0500 (EST) From: Steven Tucker <classics@nacs.net> X-Sender: classics@steve To: @ATARI.DEMON.NL Subject: APETIME Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.990201145544.2692C-100000@steve> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: X-Keywords: X-UID: 4654 Here is the source, enjoy and lmk if you have any questions. Steve - ;; APETIME Time Downloader ;; ;; Uses the spartados comtab to set the time and date via the entry vectors ;; under the OS that are installed by Spartados and Spartados X. This ;; should work in any version of Spartados. Routines fot both machines ;; with memory under the OS and those without are included. ;; ;; The programmed time is downloaded from the attached APE software. If APE ;; is not present, the loader complains & exits without disturbing the time ;; ;; ;; compiler directives ;; .lsfirst ;; 6502 is little endian ;; ;; word -> byte conversion macros in TASM c style. ;; #define lo(work) (work & $00FF) #define hi(work) ((work & $FF00) >> ;; ;; program constants ;; ciov .equ $E456 ;; Legal CIO entry point siov .equ $E459 ;; Legal SIO entry point vgettd .equ $FFC0 ;; Routine under OS to put time/date in TIMER/DATER vsettd .equ $FFC3 ;; Routine under OS to set tine/date from TIMER/DATER comtab .equ $000A ;; Spartados COMTAB location pointer portb .equ $D301 ;; PIA Port B loadadd .equ $6000 ;; Start address of our software loadmrk .equ $FFFF ;; Binary load header dateoff .equ $000D ;; DATER offset _800flg .equ $001B ;; _800FLG offset ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; AtariDOS EXE load instructions. ;; .org loadadd-6 ;; Adjust required for binary load marker .word loadmrk ;; Binary load marker .word loadadd ;; Pointer to first byte of program .word tail-1 ;; Pointer to last byte of program ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Entry point, program mainline ;; jsr msg ;; display copyright message jsr chksd ;; check for spartados! jsr chkmod ;; check for xl/xe or 400/800 bcs xlxemode ;; goto XL/XE routine. a800mode: jsr get800 ;; get time into page 7 bmi tranerr ;; error during time download! jsr set800 ;; set time 800 SDX style rts ;; exit program xlxemode: jsr gettime ;; get date/time bmi tranerr ;; errir during time download! jsr settime ;; set time rts ;; exit program. tranerr: jsr ioerror ;; display i/o error message rts ;; exit program. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Displays the copyright message ;; msg jsr printcr ldx #lo(copy1) ldy #hi(copy1) jsr print ldx #lo(copy2) ldy #hi(copy2) jmp print ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Check for Spartados signature. ;; chksd lda $700 cmp #$53 bne notsd rts notsd jsr printcr ldx #lo(nosdmsg) ldy #hi(nosdmsg) jsr print pla pla rts ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Determine if SDX running on 400/800 or XL/XE w/ either ;; ;; Returns: C clear if 800, set if XL/XE ;; chkmod ldy #$_800flg ;; _800FLG Offset in COMTAB lda (comtab),Y ;; Get state cmp #$FF ;; Running in 800 mode? bne no800 ;; not an 800 is800 jsr printcr ;; display 800 message ldx #lo(a800) ldy #hi(a800) jsr print clc rts no800 jsr printcr ;; display XL/XE message ldx #lo(xlxe) ldy #hi(xlxe) jsr print sec rts ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Attempt to download time from APE. ;; gettime ldx #$0B ;; setup the download command setloop lda cmdtab,x ;; sta $300,x ;; dex ;; bpl setloop ;; clc ;; download directly into CONTAB. lda comtab ;; calculate destination address adc #dateoff ;; sta $304 ;; lda comtab+1 ;; adc #$00 ;; sta $305 ;; jmp siov ;; get time from APE ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Attempt to download time from APE in 800 system. ;; get800 ldx #$0B ;; setup the download command getl800 lda cmdtab,x ;; sta $300,x ;; dex ;; bpl getl800 ;; lda #$7B ;; download into page 7 time locations. sta $304 ;; lda #$07 ;; sta $305 ;; jmp siov ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Enters spartados kernel routine to set time. ;; settime lda portb ;; get into ram portion pha ;; and #$FE ;; sta portb ;; jsr vsettd ;; enter spartados pla ;; sta portb ;; restore OS rts ;; exit ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Enters the spartados X kernel settime routine for 800 computer ;; set800 ldy #$65 ;; set time command lda #$10 ;; clock device sta $761 ;; jmp $703 ;; execute command ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Displays i/o error message ;; ioerror jsr printcr ldx #lo(errmsg) ldy #hi(errmsg) jmp print ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Prints a carrage return ;; printcr ldx #lo(cr) ldy #hi(cr) jmp print ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Print a 155 (ATASCII CR) terminated string to E: ;; ;; x = low begin addr ;; y = high begin addr ;; print txa ldx #$00 sta $344,x tya sta $345,x lda #$09 sta $342,x lda #$ff sta $348,x jmp ciov ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Program tables and messages ;; cmdtab .byte $31, $01, $93, $40, $00, $00, $00, $00, $06, $00, $EE, $A0 a800 .byte "SDX 800 or 3.3a detected.", 155 xlxe .byte "XL/XE detected.", 155 errmsg .byte "Download failed!", 155 nosdmsg .byte "Not SpartaDOS!", 155 copy1 .byte "APE Time/Date Download Utility", 155 copy2 .byte "Copyright 1997 Steven J Tucker" cr .byte 155 ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; Load run address locations. ;; tail .word loadmrk .word $02E0 .word $02E1 .word loadadd ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ;; ;; ;; .end -- * * * Author of Imagic and APE - The Atari Peripheral Emulator! * * * * * * Turn your 8-bit Atari into a powerhouse with APE! * * * * * * Ape Homepage: http://www.nacs.net/~classics * * * * * ********************************************************* * * !! Request my *FOR SALE* LISTING OF CLASSIC VIDEO GAME STUFF -- 2000+ Items !! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 Hi Steve! First, thanks a lot for popping into this thread! I plan to just add a VCP endpoint to the device so it can work with programs that only want an RS232 port. The current version of APE also support VCP devices like FTDI chips so if time does not run out before I have to return to classes, I will work on it. Hmmm... Will this give any advantage over other USB-serial adapters, like the FTDI chip? IMO the real beauty of your USB interface is that the timing critical SIO stuff is handeled by the microcontroller inside your interface plus several other nice features like cassette handling with motor control and FSK capture. These would be really cool features, but I guess they won't be available with a VCP driver? How about some libusb code plus specs, like you wrote about in this posting? IMO this would really be awesome, especially if we can then use all of advanced stuff. Actually, when I designed the USB interface there were no good VCP chips. If I knew FTDI would finally release a driver that didn't regularly bugcheck every system it was installed on I would have saved myself a lot of trouble and just used those. But then again I'm probably the only person here who remembers how slow and unstable those drivers were until recently. :-) IMO the FTDI chips are nice, but the various hardware and/or software versions still have some annoying (and undocumented) bugs. So, while they are better than other USB-serial chips they are still far from being perfect, especially if you want to use some of the advanced features like bit-banging I/O. The "autosensing" universal SIO2PC/1050-2-PC serial interface wasn't that autosensing at all but required to toggle a serial control line to switch between modes (and to get it running at all): http://www.atarimax.com/flashcart/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=570, especially this posting by buzz.If you define 'auto-sensing' as 'able to sense which of APE or ProSystem is running', then it is true. In fact I'm not sure what else you would expect it to sense based on my description? In this case buzz had the troubles - after he discovered what was going wrong it was a quite simple job for me to fix it in AtariSIO :-) Maybe 'auto-sensing' was a little bit misleading, maybe 'software switchable' or 'universal' as you call it now would have been better. But these are just guesses as it wasn't me (and I don't own this specific interface, only homebuilt SIO2PC and 1050-2-PC interfaces). so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 (edited) How about some libusb code plus specs, like you wrote about in this posting? IMO this would really be awesome, especially if we can then use all of advanced stuff. The VCP may work the same, I'll have to try it. I wrote the material about libusb shortly after releasing the GPL libusb code for the USB flash cartridges for the Colecovision and Atari 5200. The problem with libusb is that the code couldn't be used on Windows, because even libusb requires a signing certificate to access USB devices under 64-bit versions of Windows. I went through a lot of legal trouble and spent a lot of money to get the signing certificate for the 64-bit drivers I released for my products. I'd prefer never to repeat the process again, so switching to something that already has a standard driver like communications class devices seems a better choice. Another problem is that the USB adapter relies heavily on all the data structures and program methods used within APE. I would have to re-write the whole firmware to make it suitable for consumption by other programs, so I'll probably end up just adding on the VCP support and see how that works. If VCP turns out to work as well as the current method then I will just eventually make VCP the default in APE. There is some very large bold print at the top of the ordering form for the USB interface that states it only works with APE for Windows. I will go in an remove the old comments about libusb until I can actually produce some code or a new firmware, so it does not seem I am trying to promote a feature that does not exist. Edit: oops never-mind, I thought the post above was on my forum. Its an old post here from when I first put the interface up for sale and I can't edit it. Sorry. Steve Edited July 22, 2010 by classics Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EightBitWitch Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 (edited) What is a VCP? EDIT: Virtual COM Port Driver? Edited July 22, 2010 by EightBitWitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classics Posted July 22, 2010 Share Posted July 22, 2010 What is a VCP? EDIT: Virtual COM Port Driver? Yes, the kind of driver FTDI and Prolific RS232 chips use. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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