[NTLK] Newton 2100 startup sound

[Matthias Melcher]

Oh, ok. I knew this would lead to confusion ;-)

Currently, Einstein on macOS can catch and evaluate ROM calls to the external serial port interface. I can send and receive data within Einstein.

To connect Einstein to the outside world, I use a Unix/Linux/macOS special file that just pipes data back and forth. Other apps, like NCX, must be modified to use these pipes, which works very well.

But it would be much more useful to use an actual serial port (well, a SUB-to-serial port, since modern machines no longer have builtin serial ports). Now there are two versions: 

Version 1 makes Einstein communicate to the outside world using one of those USB-to-serial converters. This could be a USB-to-IR converter as well. This has not been implemented because there is little use. You could use an old old Mac and run NTK or NCU on it and connect to Einstein via a serial cable, which seems unlikely. This is easy to implement, but IR specifics are unknown and would need a lot of investigation. With an IR dongle on an Android device, you may actually be able to control your TV.

The other idea, which is the one that I talked about, involves a virtual serial port, which makes Einstein appear as an externally connected MessagePad to the host machine. That way, we can run NCX, or NTK or NCU on BasiliskII without any modification to those programs. However, this involves the black art of programming a kernel extension, which Apple has made extremely difficult by not documenting the interface, and then changing it between 10.12 and 10.13.


> On Apr 23, 2018, at 04:21, howhardz at vcn.bc.ca wrote:
> 
> greetings programmers
> 
> The serial ports achievements described in this thread
> seem to allow me to use my many IR routines for TV with the emulation.
> All infra-red activity relies on the serial port.
> 
> Aside from puzzles about getting a android having IR built-in, my main
> question is whether the rom call SendRemote is available from Einstein.
> 
> I have controlled many tv & stereo components over the years from the
> Newt & of course I still have a useable Newton...  now I look for new
> validations of Einstein... for now I use Einstein semi-regularly on MacOS. It
> is  very reliable.
> 
> Any takers among those who might know of SendRemote?
> 
> N  E  I  L
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from an IPad
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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