[NTLK] The Leopard and the Newt

Hallo list, hallo Simon!

I can announce success with connecting my new iMac to my 2100 via NCX
and a USB to serial adapter from DeLOCK:

http://www.delock.de/produkte/gruppen/USB+Adapter/USB_Seriell_Adapter_9St_blau_61018.html?action=showdriver&amp
;

Thanks so much Simon for making this possible!

Now the next step would be of course wireless. Why? It would free one
of the connectors on my USB hub. It would reduce the strain on my
Newt's interconnection port. It’s faster, and so much cooler as well.
Last night I slept little because I was trying to connect Leopard and
Newt the wifi way. I feel I almost got there. Almost.

Maybe the biggest issue here is that I want to connect both machines
directly, i.e. without a wifi router as intermediary (no internet
sharing required, I just want to get NCX working wirelessly). Is this
even possible? Simons documentation for NCX seems to say it’s not when
it comments on installation requirements:

"A wireless networking PC card for your Newton device and access to your
local network via a wireless router"

If that is the last word on the affair - well, I’ll stick to serial.
If not, here’s what I’ve got.

A current iMac with Leopard OS X 10.5.1 with working AirPort and
Ethernet configuration, NCX installed and open arms, er, ports for NCX
(I know because I checked via portscan).

A 2100 with card, driver and packages installed - all in good working
order, which I know because I checked with another WLAN recently. I
have configured everything manually with the IP-adresses given to me
by the iMac itself. With "everything" I mean both the TCP/IP
preferences and the internet setup through which Hiroshis driver tries
to talk with the AirPort. Hiroshis driver is on channel 11, the one
proposed by the AirPort management, it's tuned to ad-hoc style
connections, WEP is on (I was surprised AirPort found a whole zoo of
wireless networks in my immediate and not so immediate neighbourhood,
some as far as 100 meters away).

Symptoms of relative success and (so far) absolute failure are:

When I try to connect via TCP/IP-Dock, all seems to go well at first.
Drivers are loaded, an "internet" connection is initiated. Then Dock
says it's waiting for a connection. Then it quits saying: "Cannot
reach the server". After two or three unsuccessful attempts AirPort
notices someone wants to check in and reports the SSID I chose for my
fledgling local network of two. NCX never shows a reaction.

When I try to connect via Ethernet-Dock, all seems to go well at
first. Ethernet Dock has earlier on actually been able to find my iMac
on the network, and when I tell it to do so it tries to connect. And
it tries and tries and tries. But it can't get no satisfaction, diode
on the Orinoco flickering away and all. NCX never shows a reaction.

This passivity on NCX's part may very well be due to the fact that I
can't choose anything in NCX > General Preferences which refers even
remotely to AirPort departures. The only two things I can choose under
"use serial port": "usbserial" (this is the one doing such a brilliant
job with the USB to serial adapter) and "Bluetooth-PDA-Sync" which
doesn't do anything at all. BTW I tried Bluetooth a week ago, and it
was a bloody mess.

General Preferences doesn't seem to like wifi. Simon, go tell the
general we have evolved from the days of the Civil War, transportation
via horses is a thing of the past, there's AirPorts now! Yeah, I know.
Probably I should tell him myself through buying and installing a wifi
router etc. But I don't want to. I so want to keep this a private
little conversation between the leopard and the newt. Maybe they'll
have to take it serially easy.

Best,

Marcus

http://www.cityinfonetz.de/homepages/hammerschmitt/high.html
http://jpgmag.com/people/MH2
http://concord.antville.org/

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Received on Tue Feb 5 07:48:16 2008