Do you use hardware UART (serial port) in emulation?

[giantclam]

Open question to all Amiga emulator users ~ doesn't matter which emulator you use, or what hardware or host OS you're using.

Most Amiga emulators provide the facility to use the host system's hardware serial (UART) port, inside the Amiga emulated environment. This allows you, for example, to connect the Amiga emulated machine, to either an external serial device, or to another Amiga (emulated or real) via null-modem cable, for games that support this feature.

I'm interested to know if anyone uses this feature within Amiga emulators?

TIA

[paraj]

Saying I use it all the time would be a wild exaggeration (but voted that anyway). I use it for developing/debugging code that uses the serial port, which I sometimes use for logging data when other methods won't work.

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by paraj

Saying I use it all the time would be a wild exaggeration (but voted that anyway). I use it for developing/debugging code that uses the serial port, which I sometimes use for logging data when other methods won't work.

Thanks for mentioning your usage case.

[arcanist]

Do they still make motherboards with non-USB serial ports?

My hardware synthesizer project has both parallel and USB ports. The parallel port is for Amiga hardware. The USB port implements a CDC endpoint, which I tunnel into UAE's parallel port via a TCP socket. Voila, works on real hardware and emulation perfectly!

But physical UART... I don't know what I'd do with that.

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by arcanist

Do they still make motherboards with non-USB serial ports?

Really depends on brand/model, but as you point out it is very much deprecated these days. If ppl are running Amiga emulation on (slightly) older than current mainboards, they likely have a serial UART header...(then the question sort of becomes how many ppl go to the trouble of wiring that header up, so they can use it in emulation? =)


In a similar vein, folks running Amiga emulator on light-weight hardware...ie; raspberry-pi -- how many ppl actually buy/get a USB <->RS232 dongle, to be able to use the serial port with their emulator of choice?

Originally Posted by arcanist

But physical UART... I don't know what I'd do with that.

That's fine ~ please vote accordingly...ie; that would be a "no" ...

[SkulleateR]

I cannot vote, I miss something like :

"Yes -- I used it sometimes in the past and maybe I will use it again."

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by SkulleateR

I cannot vote, I miss something like :

"Yes -- I used it sometimes in the past and maybe I will use it again."

Think balanced =) .... ie; how long ago is 'the past', 'sometimes'...ie; "I used it 2 or 3 times 10 years ago" ... 'maybe I will use it again'...the likelihood of that happening (off into the future when your hardware doesn't have a UART anymore =). You don't have to vote of course.... but your comment counts

[Photon]

No. For debugging/transfer serial is just bad parallel.

A few games use serial instead of parnet for multiplayer. Maybe. But those were early games, serial can't do much for gaming unfortunately.

I would like it if emulation supported serial for MIDI and parallel for sampling, though. But it doesn't.

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by Photon

No. For debugging/transfer serial is just bad parallel.

A few games use serial instead of parnet for multiplayer. Maybe. But those were early games, serial can't do much for gaming unfortunately.

I would like it if emulation supported serial for MIDI and parallel for sampling, though. But it doesn't.

Thanks for the comments/observations. I haven't actually tried MIDI at all within the emulated environment, however I get where you're coming from. The way modern hardware is going, this facility of using the host UART as the serial port in emulation, is going to become a moot point ~ ie; no hardware UART to begin with (caveat USB to rs232 converters ofc =)

That said, I can see easily how something like a 'USB in/out MIDI interface converter cable' for instance, would be a handy feature to expose the emulated environment to 'real world' MIDI devices .. that would vaguely be serial MIDI in a sense.

I just question exactly how much this facility is 'practical' in the modern sense, or if it's merely 'historical legacy'...ie; once upon a time I would plug my PSTN modem into my A1200's serial port, to use dialup BBS/inet connectivity -- I can't even do that now, I would have to setup a local PBX or similar =) These days, I just plugin my 3com pcmcia ether card = on my real Amigas, in real life, the serial port largely goes unused.

If the GreatMaker made it so, that serial UART hardware support disappeared overnight from every Amiga emulator out there ... how many Amiga emulator users would care?

This is the insight I'm seeking, in a nutshell

[Aardvark]

Just so I could vote "Yes -- I use it all the time, it's a great feature.", I tried serial link game Fire Power between my A1200 and WinUAE using USB serial. It works very well.
Stunt Car Racer wouldn't sync, maybe because of acceleration.

[Photon]

Maybe some peripherals like digitizing tablets for CAD used serial (or both PAR and SER)? Potentially the software could still work in emulation if hooked up correctly.

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by Aardvark

Just so I could vote "Yes -- I use it all the time, it's a great feature.", I tried serial link game Fire Power between my A1200 and WinUAE using USB serial. It works very well.
Stunt Car Racer wouldn't sync, maybe because of acceleration.

Not actually the point of the poll, I'm focused on typical day to day usage.. but thanks for pointing out this facility likely has bugs (which is invariably what happens to a software feature hardly anyone uses =)


Bummer about Stunt Car Racer tho'... great game

[giantclam]

Originally Posted by Photon

Maybe some peripherals like digitizing tablets for CAD used serial (or both PAR and SER)? Potentially the software could still work in emulation if hooked up correctly.

Theoretically, but if a peripheral has parallel-port connectivity, then the situation is already a more moot point ; parallel ports on host hardware started disappearing long before hardware serial UARTS, so anything like this would need a USB <-> ieee1284 parallel port adapter...and PAR is not the focus here =)

[SkulleateR]

Originally Posted by giantclam

Not actually the point of the poll, I'm focused on typical day to day usage..

Then tell me, what IS the point ?

Even on a real Amiga the serial port will not be used really often So, it's nice to have and completes an emulated machine but that's it ...

[Photon]

Originally Posted by giantclam

Theoretically, but if a peripheral has parallel-port connectivity, then the situation is already a more moot point ; parallel ports on host hardware started disappearing long before hardware serial UARTS, so anything like this would need a USB <-> ieee1284 parallel port adapter...and PAR is not the focus here =)

Well SER can't do multiplayer joysticks, and that seems supported on FS-UAE.

AmigaLive must do this by providing a port for each of the joysticks that goes to the host of the supporting game's PAR emulation?

I.e. what's used to send, joystick or keyboard is not the point, and the emu keeping PAR emu is the point, if it is to support multiplayer beyond 2 in games that support it.

PAR vs SER: Yeah, isn't it a shame that all that is good goes away, and barebones trash/cheap wins? As a countermeasure, emus can support what the hardware supports i.e. SER, PAR, MIDI, all the standard ports and protocols for which there is no replacement, for as long as the supporting OS does.

[Daedalus]

If they disappeared overnight it would be something I'd miss, but it's something I use occasionally, definitely not all the time and definitely not never, so I haven't voted.

While the ports have long since disappeared from PC motherboards, aside from USB adaptors it's still possible to add PCI cards with legacy ports, which are cheap and easy to find. I have two serial ports in my main PC for various use cases.

[Photon]

PAR could be used to preserve the contents of Zip disks (which could be used as harddisks on Amiga and PC, also over SCSI). That's what I used after I came back to Amiga ~ 2005.

The format was not Amiga-specific, so you can still preserve the contents while there are PC drives being sold used, and you can get drivers and make them work under available OS versions.

My stuff got transferred to CF fairly quickly, so NP. But a niche case that could be filled with emu PAR support, anyway, if a user only has the PAR Zipdrive and disks to read.

Just added this cos I remembered.

I also coded an Amiga->C64 cross assembler with macros which used PAR back in the day cos a nostalgia bug bit me. But I hereby declare that you don't have to support PAR in any emu on that account.

Edit: Sorry for all the mentioning of PAR and not SER, it's really off-topic, isn't it?

But I just struggle to think of uses for SER in emus.

Hosting an Amiga BBS I guess, but with emu on PC for convenience? They might not see this thread and so couldn't speak up.