Re: VT340 Emulation

2021-06-28 Thread David Brownlee via cctalk
On Sat, 26 Jun 2021 at 18:15, Paul Koning via cctalk
 wrote:
> > On Jun 26, 2021, at 11:31 AM, Tapley, Mark B. via cctalk 
> >  wrote:
> >
> > At one point FTDI had a reasonably good reputation, and I own one of those 
> > devices based on that reputation. I have used it with no obvious problems 
> > connecting a TRS Color Computer 3 to an iMac G3 for a floppy-drive emulator 
> > (DriveWire on the iMac), but I think only for that application so far.
> >
> > Are there any particular pitfalls I should watch out for with the FTDI 
> > device, when/if I can get back to working with it?
>
> I once bought a USB serial port device with a DE-9 connector on it, Belkin I 
> think.  It worked somewhat.  Might have needed its own driver, which on a Mac 
> is highly unusual.  It gave me enough trouble I set it aside.
>
> Since then I've bought several different flavors of the FTDI USB serial 
> device, one RS-232, one 5 volt logic, one 3.3 volt logic (the latter two with 
> 6-pin connectors to fit onto pin headers such as are found on the BeagleBone 
> Black).  They have always worked flawlessly (on my Mac), at a number of data 
> rates: 4800, 9600, 19.2k, 115k.  I'll admit I haven't needed stranger cases 
> like 5 or 6 bit data, or exotic slow speeds.  As I mentioned, if that need 
> arises and FTDI isn't good enough I'll have the RPico to do the job.

I noticed this the other day, just in case it's of interest to anyone
on this thread.

| https://www.tindie.com/products/nsayer/ftdi-be-gone/
| FTDI-be-gone is a USB-to-serial adapter. The RS-232 variant has a
DB9M connector on one
| end and a micro-B USB connector on the other. The TTL variant has a
6 pin SIP header on the
| end opposite the USB connector. Both have two LEDs - a red one to
indicate transmitted data
| and a green one to indicate received data.
| The USB-UART chip is a Cypress Semi CY7C65213. Rather than use a
proprietary device
| driver to implement the serial port in the host, it relies on CDC
class drivers supplied by the
| OS.

Unrelated - if you know someone who works with clocks, or in other
ways has a natural affinity to even per second ticks,
https://www.tindie.com/products/nsayer/crazy-clock/ could be quite a
horrible/good present to get them depending on their sense of humour
(just bought one for a clock repairing geek friend :-p)

David


Re: VT340 Emulation

2021-06-28 Thread Paul Koning via cctalk



> On Jun 28, 2021, at 4:23 AM, David Brownlee via cctalk 
>  wrote:
> 
> ...
> I noticed this the other day, just in case it's of interest to anyone
> on this thread.
> 
> | https://www.tindie.com/products/nsayer/ftdi-be-gone/
> | FTDI-be-gone is a USB-to-serial adapter. ... Rather than use a
> proprietary device
> | driver to implement the serial port in the host, it relies on CDC
> class drivers supplied by the
> | OS.

Which OS requires special FTDI drivers?  Mac OS certainly does not.

paul



Re: VT340 Emulation

2021-06-28 Thread David Brownlee via cctalk
On Mon, 28 Jun 2021 at 14:11, Paul Koning  wrote:
> > On Jun 28, 2021, at 4:23 AM, David Brownlee via cctalk 
> >  wrote:
> >
> > ...
> > I noticed this the other day, just in case it's of interest to anyone
> > on this thread.
> >
> > | https://www.tindie.com/products/nsayer/ftdi-be-gone/
> > | FTDI-be-gone is a USB-to-serial adapter. ... Rather than use a
> > proprietary device
> > | driver to implement the serial port in the host, it relies on CDC
> > class drivers supplied by the
> > | OS.
>
> Which OS requires special FTDI drivers?  Mac OS certainly does not.

I think he's probably referring to the hugely overinflated BIOS &
firmware updating software that most x86 hardware ships with.

I've never had the need to connect an FTDI based device to anything
other than NetBSD, but I remember reading the horror stories a while
back about FTDI Windows drivers trying to brick knock off clone
hardware.

David


Re: VT340 Emulation

2021-06-28 Thread Chuck Guzis via cctalk
On 6/28/21 6:22 AM, David Brownlee via cctalk wrote:

> I think he's probably referring to the hugely overinflated BIOS &
> firmware updating software that most x86 hardware ships with.
> 
> I've never had the need to connect an FTDI based device to anything
> other than NetBSD, but I remember reading the horror stories a while
> back about FTDI Windows drivers trying to brick knock off clone
> hardware.

Never ran into that; I do use USB-serial dongles using the Prolific
chipset and have never had problems with Linux or Windows 7 or XP.

FWIW
Chuck