The Sinclair QL Forum

Hello

What's the quickest way to check a serial link on the QL using SuperBasic? I want to send some text to a Mac via a USB to serial adapter to ensure the cable is wired properly.

I guess the way is to OPEN a channel to SER2 then PRINT #n (where n is the channel number), but the manual doesn't seem to explain the OPEN syntax very well. Is it OPEN n, SER1? And how do I pick the channel number? Can I list all currently open channels?

Ultimately I want to transfer software to the QL via serial, but I have not seen may discussions or articles on how to do it. Can anyone advise?

Thanks

JonB

JonB wrote:I guess the way is to OPEN a channel to SER2 then PRINT #n (where n is the channel number), but the manual doesn't seem to explain the OPEN syntax very well. Is it OPEN n, SER1? And how do I pick the channel number? Can I list all currently open channels?

Jon,

10 OPEN #3,ser2h
15 BAUD 1200
20 REPeat loop
30 PRINT #3,"TEST"
40 END REPEAT

should print to ser2 using hardware handshake (If you want to check your cable, then this is what you should do - In most cases where I have seen problems with the cables, people didn't get the handshake lines right). If this doesn't work, try "ser2_" (without the "h") if this works, you know you've got HW handshake wrong

Without a toolkit, it isn't possible to list currently open channels - After boot, #0, #1 and #2 are used for the screen channels, everything else should be unused. You need to keep track of the used channel numbers yourselves. There is a toolkit command "CHANNELS" that lists open channels - But where that came from currently escapes me.

Make sure when the QL is on the receiving end you don't use baud rates exceeding 9600 - The standard QL will not reliably receive using larger baud rates.

Regards,
Tobias

With ser2h, nothing happens.

With ser2_ or "ser2_", I get a "bad name" error.

What about ser1, might that do it? Or is that just for modems?

Update: Ser 1 is giving rows of "~" (tilde) characters with no running program. However, when I run the program with OPEN #3, ser1 (or ser1h) it seems to send characters (just not the right ones).

Update 2: Full program:

5 CLS
10 OPEN #3, ser2h
15 BAUD 1200
20 PRINT#3, "test"
25 PRINT ".";
30 GOTO 20

The odd thing is, it prints 12 dots then stops. I am guessing that the send buffer is full. At the other end I am running a terminal program with the following settings : 1200 baud, no parity, 8 bits, 1 stop bit, no flow control, no hardware handshake (and also with HH, but it makes no difference).

The parameters are:
SER<portnumber><parity><handshake><conversion>
being 1, 2 for port (3 and more with SuperHermes)
e - even parity, o - odd parity, m - mark parity, s - space
h - handshaking, i - ignore handshaking
r - raw data, z - appends CTRL+Z to end of file, c - converts LF to CR and adds CTRL+Z to end of file.

I am making my serial cable for Samsung QL (not succesful yet), I have following simple terminal (don't know if it is correct, as tests with my cable were unsuccessful):

You can change SER1hr to SER1ir, to ignore handshaking (for the case that data wires are correct, but handshaking wiring is wrong).

10 OPEN #7,ser1hr
160 BAUD 19200 :REMark I have Hermes
170 a$=INKEY$(#7):print a$;
180 a$=INKEY$:print a$:print #7,a$;
200 GOTO 170

Ah, that's better. Handshaking is killing it. Where are these channel numbers documented?

The channel numbers don't mean anything, they are just arbitrary numbers you can pick.

Tobias

Sorry, not the numbers, the names. I feel I have missed something in the QL manual... or is it not in there?

I'm sure it's there.
In the Concepts section, I seem to recall.

Tobias

I'll have another look. Got to say, I don't get on with the Sinclair guides, they are too tutorial-esque for me. I would have expected all that to be documented in the open statement section, or at least a reference to the relevant bit in Concepts.

Anyway, thanks to everyone and dex in particular I have sent text to the Mac. Next step is to get it back!

As I think it is really important to be able to understand the complex subject of devices on the QL, I have uploaded a zip containing the Device Drivers Appendix from the SBASIC/SuperBASIC Reference Manual.

This is available from :
http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/downloads ... rivers.zip

Hopefully this will help explain some of the issues.