[Coco] DriveWire 4 and Linux serial port

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday, February 08, 2015 07:00:29 AM Allen Huffman wrote:
> > On Feb 8, 2015, at 5:41 AM, Tormod Volden <lists.tormod at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > 
> > On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 12:02 PM, Allen Huffman wrote:
> >> Now, since I have multiple serial ports on the Linux machine, I would
> >> still need a way to tell it which one to use. I expect the GUI lets
> >> me select, but I do not have access to the GUI.
> > 
> > You can run the server on the RPi and the GUI on another machine and
> > configure it from there.
> 
> Yeah, that's what I ended up doing, and I formatted my first /x0
> in-memory image. I tried to get X running on the PI first, but I don't
> have a mouse there, and couldn't use any of the menus in the DW app.
> Ugh.
> 
> It's a huge hassle to get VNC and all the stuff installed just to set a
> serial port. I spent an hour Googling and trying to resolve issues
> because the Pi Linux has evolved a bit since most of the answers were
> written. I also had to do a few more installs just to make the GUI able
> to run. So many steps! Linux is a monster.
> 
> I want to be able to show folks how to install a Pi image, install Java
> and DW, edit some simple things, then have it running.
> 
> Hopefully it is possible.
> 
> 		-- A

While you may have the Pi handy, as you've seen, real X support is lacking.  
You would I suspect, have a lot better luck using the Beaglebone Black, 
which does have built in HDMI output, just plug the cable into the connector 
on the Pi sized board.

A branch/fork of LinuxCNC called machinekit is happily running several CNC 
machines right now, and you cannot tell from looking at the GUI that it is 
not an X86 based machine on the far end of the video cable..  All it needs 
is an I/O cape (stacked buffer/connector breakout board) to bring out the I/O 
in a format that is easier to connect to in the field. The thing actually has 
a large group of sub-processors that can generate step-dir signals at 20 
mhz+ rates while the cpu is off doing something else.

$70 for the basic board, which may be all you would need except perhaps a 
usb-serial adaptor to connect dw to the coco.  And stay the heck away from 
Prolific chiped adaptors, use FTDI based instead.  I have had both here, and 
I am in fact using an FTDI serial adaptor to get to a db9, and that in trurn 
is plugged into the coco's bitbanger.  Home made cable.

Works well here on this linux box which has a slihjtly modified debian wheezt 
install on it.

Using /dev/ttyUSB1, ttyUSB0 is feeding a cm-11a doing some local light 
controls via a heyu install.
 
Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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