PC Serial to Amiga Serial

[lesta_smsc]

Hello folks,

Just out of curiosity - will this work to connect a standard PC serial port to the Amiga (e.g. A600)?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RS232-SERI...item35bef66fcc

Relatively cheap, and would be ideal for me if it meant less hassle to make custom cable.

(Planning to use it via USB-to-Serial adaptor - which so far has worked with everything thrown at it!)

Regards,
Lesta

Edit: Found this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/6ft-Null-M...item416928ce5a
But price is a lot considering it's going to be posted from the USA!

Is this the same: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Serial-Cab...item1e6e6aa6a6
Or would it have different configuration?

[Cammy]

Get that last one, it should work. The one in the first link certainly won't even fit in the Amiga.

The best Null-Modem cables I have found and used have both 25 and 9 pin plugs on each end, so they can be used to link Amiga-Amiga, Amiga-PC, and PC-PC.

I have been playing with them lately and discovered a very memory-efficient and fast way to go online and surf the net on an Amiga linked to a PC through serial. You use Multilink to connect to a Linux/Unix/BSD/OSX machine and use its TCP/IP connection, meaning you don't even need to run AmiTCP or Miami on the Amiga. It's ideal for going online with a 1MB A500/A600 or CD32.

[orange]

but, with A600, pcmcia ethernet card should be much better option.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Cammy

You use Multilink to connect to a Linux/Unix/BSD/OSX machine and use its TCP/IP connection, meaning you don't even need to run AmiTCP or Miami on the Amiga. It's ideal for going online with a 1MB A500/A600 or CD32.

That's awesome, will check this out! I remember doing this using Miami on my A600 and it was a massive memory hog. I never managed to make AmiTCP run. Thanks!

[Cammy]

Although I have used AmiTCP on a 1MB A600 with a PCMCIA ethernet card it took up so much RAM that I needed to constantly flush the buffer in Grapevine IRC or it would all completely run out, so being able to use a more memory-efficient method of connecting to the internet can be helpful in some cases, especially when it then leaves the PCMCIA slot free for an SRAM card or SD/CF reader. It also is less of a CPU-hog since the PC handles all the TCP/IP stuff, much the same way Windows does for WinUAE.

[Twiggy]

Has anyone else had any trouble compiling MultiLink on Linux?

When I run sh buildmlink I get:

Multilink Configure

Finding C compiler...
conftest.c: In function 'main':
conftest.c:43:5: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of built-in function 'bcopy' [enabled by default]
conftest.c:43:5: error: too few arguments to function 'bcopy'
conftest.c: In function 'main':
conftest.c:43:5: warning: incompatible implicit declaration of built-in function 'bcopy' [enabled by default]
conftest.c:43:5: error: too few arguments to function 'bcopy'
No C compiler!

I have gcc and the usual compiling things (I think!). Anyone else had this issue? Thanks

[lesta_smsc]

This is great info - thanks guys! Cammy - thanks for the heads up about Multilink - Yes, I have the standard A600 HD with no ram upgrade, and to be fair it did what I wanted (i.e. play the games!) so just needed a convenient way of transferring ADFs and getting it online would be a bonus!

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Cammy

Although I have used AmiTCP on a 1MB A600 with a PCMCIA ethernet card it took up so much RAM that I needed to constantly flush the buffer in Grapevine IRC or it would all completely run out, so being able to use a more memory-efficient method of connecting to the internet can be helpful in some cases, especially when it then leaves the PCMCIA slot free for an SRAM card or SD/CF reader. It also is less of a CPU-hog since the PC handles all the TCP/IP stuff, much the same way Windows does for WinUAE.

I wonder if this would run if I run Multilink under Virtualbox, because I have no Linux set up. Now where is my serial null modem cable, I wonder?

[hooverphonique]

I remember using multilink back in the 90's to get a tcp/ip connection on the amiga through a modem dial-up connection to the university network :-D

[Cammy]

twiggy, I had problems compiling it also, so I asked for help on another forum and mongo managed to compile and upload it for me to use. You can download it from here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/b3a6wf

Remember to use the "install" command to copy the mlink file to your /bin directory, not "cp". And you will probably need to log in for root access, so use "sudo install".

Also for anyone who doesn't have Linux installed and doesn't want to bother with a VM, it's very easy to download an Ubuntu ISO, burn it and boot into it, or install it to a USB stick. Other distributions are similarly simple these days.

[orange]

Originally Posted by Cammy

Although I have used AmiTCP on a 1MB A600 with a PCMCIA ethernet card it took up so much RAM that I needed to constantly flush the buffer in Grapevine IRC or it would all completely run out, so being able to use a more memory-efficient method of connecting to the internet can be helpful in some cases, especially when it then leaves the PCMCIA slot free for an SRAM card or SD/CF reader. It also is less of a CPU-hog since the PC handles all the TCP/IP stuff, much the same way Windows does for WinUAE.

interesting solution, but for transfering .adf images, pcmcia ethernet seems logical choice.
(and with serial, zmodem would have less overhead than tcpip.)
because, now its relatively easy/cheap to expand A600 fast RAM with that A608 thingy.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by orange

interesting solution, but for transfering .adf images, pcmcia ethernet seems logical choice.

For transferring files, the logical choice is a PCMCIA Multicard/CF reader, actually.

Internet access would be fun to IRC with the Amiga, and to download stuff from aminet or others straight to it. Maybe even run a little BBS

[orange]

Originally Posted by Akira

For transferring files, the logical choice is a PCMCIA Multicard/CF reader, actually.

Internet access would be fun to IRC with the Amiga, and to download stuff from aminet or others straight to it. Maybe even run a little BBS

he might as well pull out entire HDD and fill it up in WinUAE. I never liked 'sneaker net' solutions even if they are faster.

[emufan]

Originally Posted by twiggy

I have gcc and the usual compiling things (I think!). Anyone else had this issue? Thanks

in conftest.c delete line "bcopy();". function is already definied somewhere else.
found another issue with gettimeofday calls. needs a second argument. all those "Gettimeofday()" have to be changed: for example in mlink.c:
Gettimeofday(&ntv); -> gettimeofday(&ntv,NULL);

maybe some more issues there.

[Twiggy]

Thanks Cammy. I'm having a bit of difficulty getting it going, on the Linux side the application runs with a "STRT" output (I've also tried launching it as mlink ttyUSB0) and on the Amiga side it complains with a "no serial carrier detected" error. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

[burf2000]

Did anyone find a way to do Amiga to PC running Windows 7?

Multilink sounds brilliant but I really don't want to run a Linux vm.
Can I do the same with Miami? what PC software do I need for that

I was looking at NullTCP from Aminet

[orange]

Originally Posted by burf2000

Did anyone find a way to do Amiga to PC running Windows 7?

Multilink sounds brilliant but I really don't want to run a Linux vm.
Can I do the same with Miami? what PC software do I need for that

I was looking at NullTCP from Aminet

perhaps this might help: http://serverfault.com/questions/130...ows-7-computer

[johnim]

cant amigaexplorer do the same

http://www.amigaforever.com/ae/

[orange]

Originally Posted by johnim

cant amigaexplorer do the same

http://www.amigaforever.com/ae/

but, afaik, amigaexplorer is only used for copying files, like .adf
it does not provide tcpip networking, but can use it.
for file transfer, any terminal emulator will do. surely windows 7 has bunch of them.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by Cammy

Also for anyone who doesn't have Linux installed and doesn't want to bother with a VM, it's very easy to download an Ubuntu ISO, burn it and boot into it, or install it to a USB stick. Other distributions are similarly simple these days.

Hi Cammy,

I'm a complete n00b when it comes to Linux, but I might have a need for it very soon. Could you provide a link to a Ubuntu ISO for me, please?