Serial programming in ACE basic on A600.

[vext01]

Hi,

I am trying to figure out how to do serial programming in ACE basic. My setup is as follows:

* A600 with ACE (GPL release) installed to HD (CF).
* A600 serial pport connected to USB to serial device.
* USB serial plugged into laptop running OpenBSD.

To start with, I just want to open the serial device on the amiga side. Looking at the ACE basic documentation (http://www.users.on.net/~dbenn/docs/ref.html), the following program should open the serial port on the A600:

print "error code:";err
serial open 1,0,9600,"N81",1024
print "error code:";err

So we are opening the first serial line with "normal" parameters, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit and no parity on channel 1 and a buffer of 1024 bytes. I have wrapped `err` calls around the open so that we can isolate any error which may be occurring.

I compile, assemble and link the program using `bas` and a binary falls out. However, when this is run we get:

error code: 0
error code: 300

Where error code 300 is indicating that `serial open` could not open the serial port. But why?

I have also tried using the second serial line (unit 1) but alas, the same.

So really I have fallen at the first hurdle. Does anyone know what is wrong here? I'm starting to suspect ACE does not work on the A600. Maybe a discrepancy in the serial hardware (between the other systems).

[thomas]

Originally Posted by vext01

Maybe a discrepancy in the serial hardware (between the other systems).

I hope it does not poke into hardware registers but rather uses serial.device.

First check if the serial port works at all. Open a Shell window and enter

echo >ser: "hello world"

If this succeeds, run SnoopDOS before you run your Basic program. The log should show if it tries to open serial.device and perhaps even why it fails.

[vext01]

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the echo trick. Using this I was able to debug my program.

Basically, if you forget to close the serial port in your program (as I had), you render it useless until a reboot (or until you issue some command I don't yet know about). So after adding a "serial close 1" to the program it works every time!



P.S.

I had a play with snoopdos and ace basic indeed uses serial.device. Which I believe is a good thing

[alkis]

This is what I get from the 3-liner you posted when compiled (with ACE) and run three times.

3.Work:t/ace/alkis> ser
error code: 0 
error code: 0 
3.Work:t/ace/alkis> ser
error code: 0 
error code: 300 
3.Work:t/ace/alkis> ser
error code: 0 
error code: 300

Are you sure you are releasing the device before you exit?

[vext01]

@alkis -- yep, that was the issue. See the above post.

[vext01]

By the way. Does anyone know if there is a quick way to release the serial port in case a program holding the serial channel open crashes? Right now I have to reboot every time...