ESP-01 Turns off after Ardinu Rebuild

[Jim Edgell]

I accidentally erased my Ardino, successfully rebuilt and installed the Ardino. I have everything working again including the serial port, but now my ESP-01 WiFi card turns the Blue LED on and then immediately turns off every time I restart the Altair. 

Was there a setting I missed?

[Chris Davis]

I believe the blue LED turns on when it's searching for a wifi connection and turns off when it's connected.  I'll give it a try when I get home from work.

[Jim Edgell]

You are correct, the ESP-01 was still connecting to my Wi-Fi. Looks like reimaging the Ardinu has no impact on the ESP-01 settings. Once connected, the blue LED goes out, just like you said.

I found it connected to my network under an IP address, it seems since I rebuilt the Ardinu, the altair.local is no longer working on my wifi. It was working prior to reimagine the Ardinu.

[Chris Davis]

The ESP-01s has completely separate programming from the Arduino.  All it does is receive data from and send data to the Arduino.  How did you reprogram the Arduino - with the IDE, or by downloading and installing the .bin file from my website?  What pins are you connecting the ESP-01s to (D18/19, A6/7, or LED RX/TX)?

https://adwaterandstir.com/install/

https://adwaterandstir.com/2021/01/23/use-telnet-over-wifi/

[Jim Edgell]

I think I still do not fully understand how the Wi-Fi works. I’ve been reading the website documentation, but I’m still confused.

At this point, I have not soldered the ESP board to anything — I’ve only plugged it into the header pins. From what I’m reading, it sounds like it may not work the way I originally hoped.

When the documentation says I can “telnet over Wi-Fi,” which direction does that communication go? Is it:

• from another computer to the Altair over Wi-Fi, or

• from the Altair out to another system over Wi-Fi?

My original hope was that I could telnet from the Altair to my Linux server.

Right now, I have a Wyse WY-160 terminal connected to Serial Port 1. I need some way to use KERMIT to reach my Linux server. I thought the Wi-Fi module might provide that capability.

I could also accomplish this with another physical serial port, but I do not yet understand how to add a second hardware serial port, or whether that is even possible with this setup.

To answer your second question, I programmed the Arduino from my Mac using the macOS version of the Arduino IDE, and that part worked fine.

On the Mac, I do not need to use PuTTY. I can connect directly from the command line using these commands:

This command lists all the USB devices: 

    ls /dev/tty.*

The Altair was identifying as /dev/tty.usbmodem2101

This command allows me to directly connect:

    picocom -b 115200 /dev/tty.usbmodem2101

[Chris Davis]

While it was not designed to use the way you want, there is no reason you can't connect from the Altair to your Linux server, but you would probably need to design custom software to do so, unless someone can chime in with an existing CP/M solution.

The WiFi module was designed to be used to connect a laptop to the Altair-Duino using PuTTY (or the command line on a Mac), just like using a USB connection.

[Jim Edgell]

That's what I suspected about the WiFi, I'll need to go a different route.

Is there any way to connect a second physical serial port for outbound connections?

On my IMSAI 8080 from The High Nibble, there are two serial ports. I connect my terminal to the first port, then use the Kermit application over the second serial port to connect to my Linux server. From there, I can access the outside world.

I was hoping to set up the same kind of configuration here.

[Chris Davis]

There are three serial ports available.  Pins D18/19 used by the VT100 emulator, pins A6/7 used by the RS232, and the RX/TX LEDs as described here  https://adwaterandstir.com/2021/01/23/use-telnet-over-wifi/ and on page 10 of David's original documentation: https://github.com/dhansel/Altair8800/raw/master/Documentation.pdf.

[John Galt]

the same type of setup is possible.

you will need to modify your existing kit as 1 9pin serial is provided.

the second serial port is internal and used by the GEOFF terminal.

the RX/TX modification is an easy way to add another mappable 9 pin serial port

that would allow you to have an external terminal with more functions over the internal terminal and a second port for a serial device like a modem, printer, or null modem cable, raspberry pi, etc.

then you can communicate with any device over cabled serial using any cp/m modem software. you can also create a Serial WIFI bridge but its not as good.

I like IMP over Kermit.

from there sky is the limit you can easily get on the internet and even view modern HTML websites and photos.

plus Telnet, FTP, and any type of connection you could want.

you can also send and receive Gmail and join the Google groups here and post but it gets more complex using MUTT.

[Jim Edgell]

Thanks Guys! I have it working. I connected the WiFi header to this serial port, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Z5Y1WKX?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title 

I finally figured out that I needed to remove the PIC chip and it all started working. I have several Wyse terminals, no need top VGA and keyboard for me.

Wyse WY-160 connected to Primary Serial 2SIO Port 1 pin A6/A7 -> Altair-> 2SIO Port 2 pin 18/19 -> Serial Device list above -> Another Wyse WY-160.

I was able to test it with the following sequence:

1. SW 12 Up, ŚW 0 Up, Aux 2 Down - mount DISK01 in drive 0

2. SW 3 Up, Aux 1 Down - Run CPM

3. SW 12 Up, SW 8 Up, SW 4 Up, SW 1 UP, AUX 2 Down - Load IMP Disk in Drive B (Switch 8 for Drive B)

4. B:

5. IMP8

6. E - to connect!

Now I have 2 way coms between a real vt100 console talking to another vt100.

Next, I need to find a compatible DSK version of KERMIT. IMP8 goes crazy when connecting to Ubuntu, I think IMP8 is to raw a terminal app to connect to Ubuntu.

I love this system, great joy in building my second electronics project ever.

Thanks again for the suggestions, it put me on the right track.

[John Galt]

most likely the issue is with  Ubuntu. 

You may have CR and LF set different in Kermit verse the defaults for IMP and  Ubuntu defaults.

I set my terminal options and definition on login via my bash shell. i setup width and height variables as well for most unix programs.