From: Adriano (adriano.angelillis_at_gmail.com)
Date: Fri Jan 28 2005 - 06:36:53 PST
Hi all,
although the MessagePad could connect in a lot of ways with a desktop,
the serial connection is the first type i tried since i had my first
Newton. Then found this type of connection very stable for D/L mp3
songs for MadMax. I continued to use it although docking the MP on a
Mac without a serial printer port, it will need an USB to serial
adapter. So on the desktop side i have always used the keyspan usb to
twin serial (RS422) series, but sometimes these adapters are hard to
find or simply more expensive than a used-not-scratch-free MessagePad!
[Here's a google link to the image of the Keyspan adapter i am talking
about: http://www.moreware.se/keyspan/Bilder/twin.jpg]
Had the chance to try different type of USB to serial adapters, so i
want to report that on eBay you could find cheap USB to RS232 adapters
which are on sale starting at 'buy it now' price of $0,76. Making a
search on eBay for "USB RS232" with prices locked under $5,00 you will
read a long list of sellers from all over the world. Although the
different protocol (RS232 instead of RS422) these adaptors are very
stable. Most of them on eBay they will be sold with drivers on mini-CD
installer for Windows platform starting from Win95/98.
I succesfully, stably synchronized the MP with my Mac at 230400kbps
using the descripted above cheap bargain with the software utilities
below:
Escale on OS X / NCU on OS X (in classic emulation) / NCU on OS 9 (with
Serial Enabler locked at 230400kbps on the serial printer port)
[A note to Escale for OS X: when 230400kbps is choosen in the
preference panel, it could happen (very hardly) that the connection
hangs-up, or the application crashes, and consequently fail to launch.
In this case the RS232 to USB adapter will need to be unplugged and
then plugged back to have Escale again starting up and succefully
connecting to the MP2100]
The USB to RS232 drivers are downloadable free for both Mac OS 9 and OS
X platforms from the links below [there you will also find photos and
reviews of the available adapters]:
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/usb_serial.htm
http://www.beaglesoft.com/232usb.htm
http://www.serialio.com/products/adaptors/usb_serial.htm
- To have your Mac communicating at 230400kbps on OS 9, it will need
to be installed (without rebooting) the "Serial enabler" control panel,
downloadable from the link
http://www.markus-fritze.de/serialen/Serial-Enabler-1.0.3.sit
[The programmer also wrote the (free) extension which will let you use
the Newton keyboard with your Mac. I would be happy to have it patched
for OS X (as i am not able to do it, hope someone would give a try) The
Newton keyboard will let you fully use your Mac as you i will do with
an extended keyboard (i.e. you can reboot your Mac with a Newton
keyboard just holding the keys ⌘-⌥-⌫ (Apple-Alt-Delete) as for
restarting your MP2100/eMate]
- To have your Newton communicating at 230400kbps it will need to be
installed on the MP the right Newton extension, downloadable from the
link http://www.ee.cityu.edu.hk/~clli/unixnpi/Ser230400.pkg.gz
Thanks for reading, hope this report would be of help.
Adriano
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