How to connect a PC and Amiga with Bluetooth

[quantum112]

Hello, thought I'd write a little guide on an alternate way of establishing a serial connection between your PC and Amiga other than the standard serial cables - over Bluetooth.

The advantages of such a setup are obvious, there are no messy cables (like you don't have enough already) which is helpful if your Amiga is on the other side of the room relative to the PC, and plugging them in/out every time you complete a transfer is not very healthy for any serial ports involved.

Second, not having to deal with the utter mess that is the RS-232 standard (albeit you can't avoid this completely): distinguishing regular serial from null-modem cables, finding all the right adapters, making sure everything is wired properly, if you have a modern PC you will probably need a USB-serial adapter, and then when you finally put that all together, it's a real surprise if the thing actually works, and you wasted a lot of money since this stuff isn't really cheap despite (or rather due to) being so obsolete. Also, hardware stores generally don't bother giving detailed descriptions of what they sell so you can only guess if that 9-25 pin adapter is straight or null-modem wired. A real mess. I was very unlucky in getting serial transfers over cable to work despite having tried 2 serial-USB adapters and 4 different serial cables, that's why I went down the Bluetooth route.

The first thing you're going to need is a Bluetooth device for your PC. If your PC is at least from the current millenia you probably have a USB port. This means you can simply buy a relatively cheap USB Bluetooth device, even the cheap generic ones for $2 on eBay will work just fine. Don't get too carried away with brand names, I for example bought a Trust Bluetooth device which is that same generic $2 device with the "Trust" logo slapped on, they literally look the same, and they charge almost $20 for it. What a rip off. The only reason I got it is because I didn't want to wait 2 weeks for shipping.



You're also going to need some software for establishing communication between the two devices. One of the best and most widely used software is BlueSoleil, it's also very easy to use and straightforward to set up.
You can download it for free from their website.



Finally, you also need to have a receiving device on the Amiga end. This is probably the most complicated part. Obviously, since the Amiga doesn't have a USB port, the only logical thing is to find a Bluetooth-Serial adapter. These aren't that rare, although they do generally come in at a higher price tag than the USB ones. Also, take note that most of these adapters are 9-pin, which means an additional 9-25 pin adapter is required between it and the Amiga serial port. I'm using a Brainboxes BL-830 adapter, bought from eBay. This is one of the "better" devices, for several reasons; It emulates both the RTS/CTS and DTR/DSR signals. It doesn't emulate DCD/RI, but it works regardless (i.e. it isn't required). It has good software and driver support, is quite versatile, and can even be configured remotely without actually needing to be connected to another device. The only caveat of the device is that like most, it needs to have it's own power source. Since it accepts input voltages of 5-13 VDC, it should, in theory, be able to be powered through the Amiga serial port, however I haven't managed to get it running this way, but this is probably due to the 9-25 Pin adapter I'm using that most likely doesn't have that pin wired. If you buy it for the ridiculously high price at a store, you will get a power adapter with it. Unfortunately mine didn't come with one, so I made do with a rather bulky and large Playstation 2 8.5 VDC adapter, which works just fine (except that I had to grind the outer diameter a bit to make it fit but, that's the charms of DIY) So, when buying a device like this it's wise to pay attention to the technical datasheet to see if the device emulates all the necessary signals.



NOTE: The section about the 9-25 Pin Adapter has been found incorrect, and I have rewritten it, please refer to the new information in this post:


Once you have everything physically connected, it's down to the configuration. Since the USB Bluetooth device is the simplest to install,
simply plug it into a USB port and in most cases Windows should recognise it as one type or another without the need for any software. If you buy one of those cheap generic ones, they should be recognised as "BROADCOM Bluetooth Device". Otherwise, you'll have to look up the model number of your device and find the drivers online, if the device won't work out of the box.

Next thing you should do is install the Bluetooth software. BlueSoleil has a fairly easy setup procedure and once done it will most likely set up and install 2 Bluetooth Serial Ports. You can test the software by trying some simple file transfer with a mobile phone or something to make sure that the USB Bluetooth and software work so far.

If everything is fine, power up your Serial-Bluetooth adapter. Now we have to make sure that the baud-rate, stop bits, parity, handshaking and all the other settings are identical on all the devices to make sure everything works properly. In most cases you will do this by plugging in the Bluetooth-Serial device to your computer's serial port and using the device software. Unfortunately, as my PC doesn't have a serial port, I had to resort to configuring the device wirelessly, and as such couldn't do this through the official software, and had to do it through a terminal program such as HyperTerminal. Still, the end result and possibilities are the same, so I'm going to describe the method I used to configure the Brainboxes adapter.

In the following picture I already have the device connected to the Amiga, but the important thing is that it is powered on and active, so that it can be configured.



The first thing we are going to do is actually establish a valid Bluetooth link between the Trust USB BT and the Brainboxes adapter; this is done via BlueSoleil. Open BlueSoleil, and navigate to the Bluetooth menu, then press Search Devices. If everything is working fine so far, the Bluetooth Serial adapter should be detected without a problem. In my picture, the device is already detected as "Brainboxes BL-830".



Once the device has been detected, right click it and select "Connect Bluetooth Serial Port (COM#)" where the # is replaced by an actual number depending on how many other ports you have on your system.
A message should appear saying "Establishing Bluetooth Connection with >ADAPTER NAME< (COM#)". It is fairly probable that you will be asked for a password to access the device, simply look into your device manual, this is usually something like 0000, or 1234 in my case.



A message will appear in the bottom right corner of the screen to notify you that a connection was succesfully established. If your devices have LEDs, both of them will most likely start blinking to indicate an ongoing Bluetooth link.

Now we are going to use HyperTerminal to access the device over Bluetooth and change its settings so that it can be properly used with
an Amiga.

Open HyperTerminal, enter a connection name of choice. The next dialog is important, you have to designate the correct port: the one that the Bluetooth Link was established using; in my case - COM9. Then press configure.

You should refer to your device manual as to what the factory settings are, in my case the proper access speed was 115200, 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit and hardware flow control. Press OK.

For some odd reason this doesn't work from the first try, but when I remake the connection a second time I get the message "Remote Configuration Started..." Simply press enter and you should be greeted
by the configuration menu (this will most likely vary between devices).



Here we can configure all the necessary settings: set the Baud rate to 19200, no parity, 1 stop bit, and finally, press Y to confirm the setting.



Next we move on to the following menu, "Modify Bluetooth Settings"...
We can skip entering a partner device, set the device role to "server" to make it accept incoming connections rather than try to connect to other devices on it's own, and you can change the device name if you want but it's not needed.



Under the menu "Device Current Settings" we can see all of the device settings, revert to default or save them as the new defaults.
Once you have the device configured properly, you can close HyperTerminal.



We still have to make sure that the Port we are using for the Bluetooth link has the same settings, this is done in Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager. Scroll down to Ports, and expand, then find the Port used for the BT link, in my case COM9. Right click it, select Properties. Click Port settings, and make sure the settings match those of the device.



Apply the changes if needed, and make sure you set the same settings in whichever program you are using (in Amiga Explorer, for example, right click it and select properties, select the correct COM port and speed: 19200).

You should now be set for transferring files between the Amiga and PC.

Unfortunately, I'm currently awaiting a replacement floppy drive for my A500 so I can't show it in action, but as soon as the unit arrives from Vesalia I'll post a few pics to show how it works.

If anyone has any questions or if I might have missed something (I tried not to ) or something is incorrect, ask, and I shall answer .

[prowler]

Hey, that's a great effort, mate!

This is really useful stuff and a good subject for a new thread.

I can't check the procedure without the required hardware, but it looks to be very well written and complete. Well done!

[Jope]

I use the MS bluetooth stack myself.. I've hated all those 3rd party stacks. :-)

[Shoonay]

Thanks q, great work!

[demusse]

Nice tutorial!
Maybe this will work with the parallel-port aswell so no 9/25adapter is needed ?

http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/ws/eBayISAPI...m=190262209575

manual
http://www.gw-instruments.de/pico/Pi...UserManual.pdf

[quantum112]

Originally Posted by demusse

maybe this will work ?

http://cgi.benl.ebay.be/ws/eBayISAPI...m=190262209575

I've actually looked at the PICO Plug when buying an adapter as well,
but I gave up on it when I couldn't find any specific info on whether it supports the required handshaking. The manufacturer's website (SPHINX Electronic, if I am right) also doesn't give much info. I'd say, if you decide to risk it, it most likely would work, most of these devices support at least RTS/CTS, however I remember reading that DTR/DSR is also required for Amiga Explorer (and most other similar programs) to function properly, so I can't guarantee that it will function as intended without those signals.
But if you do buy it and it works, please post back here so we can add it to the list of adapters that have been tested and working, it's also cheaper than the BL-830 adapter that I bought so if it works I'm sure people would rather get that one.

EDIT: By the way, that PICO Plug has a male 25 pin side, which means you will not be able to use it with the Amiga serial port without a 25 pin gender changer, and also I can't say how well that would work with the Parallel port...BlueSoleil would have to work with it as with a printer port, and I'm not sure if file transfer would be possible then, and you also couldn't use Amiga Explorer.

Also, according to the manual "The connection, once established, will be held until the PICO Plug detects a serial port close (technical speaking: a DTR drop) or the PC is turned off." - This would suggest that it might after all support DTR/DSR (otherwise it has no way to detect it, as DTR/DSR signals are transmitted over the Bluetooth link, and RTS/CTS locally), and on the other hand at the end of the manual it says it only supports "Hardware (RTS/CTS) handshaking"... so I can't say for sure.

[amigakit.com]

Great tutorial!

[AlfaRomeo]

Thanks for share your knowledge with us quantum.
This is a great and original work

[quantum112]

In order to connect such a device to the Amiga, you will need a 9-25 pin adapter. These are really easy to find, but there is a really important detail; the wiring of the adapter itself. Basically, there is two types of adapters; straight and cross-over. As I've seen myself, there is real confusion behind these names, and it's best to try to explain this with an image. I figured the proper adapter would be a straight-type, but as turns out this is not so, please refer to the pictures below(image credits to B&B Electronics):
Here we can see two types of 9-25 pin adapters;


Straight type...



And crossover.

In order to understand which type of adapter you need it's neccessary to look at the exact pinouts of the devices we are connecting, and what would happen if we connected them with each type of adapter.

Now, let's see what would happen if we would connect it with a normal, "straight type" adapter:



This type of adapter is normally great for these purposes, but not in our case. Can you see why? Compare the pin functions on the wiring diagram of the DTE Device (Computer) to the pinout of our BL-830 adapter. Nothing matches! Transmit and receive have switched places, so have DTR and DSR, as well as RTS, CTS. Take a look at how the functions end up connected with a straight adapter in the colored diagram I have drawn; Transmit ends up connected to Receive, Data Set Ready to Data Terminal Ready, Ready to Send to Clear to Send... the only place an Amiga with an adapter connected in this way will be sending any data is right back to itself! This wiring essentially loops back all communication right back into the Amiga. Not much use from that, is it?

The reason for this mismatch is that such an adapter is used for connecting a DTE device (usually a Computer) with a DCE device (modem, peripheral, or some other receiving device). You might be thinking, hey, but the Amiga is a computer. Yes, but in the big picture, you're not connecting the Amiga with the adapter, you're connecting the Amiga with the PC, and in essence, every connection has one DTE and one DCE device, so looking at it that way, the PC is the DTE device, and the Amiga is the DCE device, together with the adapter, that is why we must use the other type of adapter, which is appropriate for a DCE<->DCE connection. Crazy, isn't it?

So what we're really looking for, is a "cross-over" or null-modem adapter.

Here is how the pinouts turn out with a proper adapter:



Transmit gets connected to transmit, receive to receive, DSR to DSR, etc.
Connected this way, we can be sure that the Bluetooth device sends all info received by the Amiga, as well as give the Amiga all the info sent by the PC.

Now when you look how complicated and specific this actually is, it comes both shocking and funny how adapters and devices like this are sold online and in electronics stores with absolutely NO details on wiring or anything, acting like it absolutely doesn't matter what you buy.
The hard part is finding a store which actually knows such specifics about the products they sell.

[Vicky]

This works until the connection to an Amiga part and I can't get it to work with Amiga Explorer.

[Vicky]

You lose the COM port when you click properties in Amiga Explorer.

[Vicky]

This doesn't work with Windows and Amiga Explorer. Cloanto has acknowledged that it doesn't' work. So you must use another file transfer program. Using another file transfer program is iffy because the incompatibility is on the Windows side. I ended up buying an X-Surf Ethernet card. Works great.