XM (XMODEM) on SC131

[Alberto Calò]

Hi guys,

I have been trying to use XM on my SC131 but to no avail.

Below are the steps I have been following:

1: At the B> prompt, I type XM R A:MY_FILE.COM 

2: Then I pull up the minicom menu, then I type "s" to send that file from my computer.
3: Then I select "xmodem"
4: Then I select the file using 'goto' to go to the correct directory and 'space bar' to tag the file itself.
5: Finally I select 'okay' and hit 'enter'.

Below what I get on my terminal:

B>XM R A:MY_FILE.COM                                                       

XMODEM v12.5 - 07/13/86                                                         

RomWBW, 30-May-2020 [WBW], HBIOS FastPath on COM0                               

                                                                                

Receiving: A0:MY_FILE.COM                                                       

344k available for uploads                                                      

File open - ready to receive                                                    

To cancel: Ctrl-X, pause, Ctrl-X                                                

CKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCK                                                        

                                                                                

++ Receive cancelled ++   

++ Partial file deleted ++                                                      

                                                                                

B>

Many thanks!

Kind regards,

Alberto

[Alberto Calò]

All sorted!

The problem was that I did not configure minicom properly! :)

kind regards,

Alberto

[Alberto Calò]

Hi again,

I think I have spoken too early ;)

I mean, I have managed to get XMODEM to work on my RC2014  Pro running CP/M via SCM 88. Infact after configuring minicom properly on my mac, to use the lrzsz package, everything worked like a charm.

However, by using the same minicom configuration I could not get XM to work on my SC131. I would have thought that XM and XMODEM are pretty much the same thing.

Basically I keep receiving the same error message, as per my first post, whenever I try to send a file to my SC131.

Any suggestion would be very much appreciated. 

Thanks a lot!

Kind regards,

Alberto

[michael....@gmail.com]

Hi Alberto,

I think the serial ports on the SC131 and the Pro SIO card are not the same. I don't use minicom, but you might need different RTS/CTS settings for each board. I think the Hardware Flow Control setting might need to be off for the Pro. 

Good luck

Mike

[Alberto C.]

Hi Mike,

Many thanks for your response. On my RC2014 pro XMODEM works fine actually. I have been struggling on the SC131 only. That is a very valid point, I will try to play with the software / hardware control settings in minicom when I use the serial connection with the SC131. I love this google group, you guys are always willing to help and share you great technical knowledge and expertise! Very much apprecaited.

Thanks a lot!

Kind regards,

Alberto

[Richard Deane]

Port A on sc131 requires rts-cts in minicom. Port B doesn't. Works well with minicom. I have two SC131 😀.

The z180 chip only has handshake on one port. You can easily switch ports on a rebuild of romwbw.

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[Alberto C.]

Hi Richard,

Brilliant, many thanks for your feedback as well! It all  makes sense now. I will change the settings in minicom then.

Uahhh, you have got 2 SC131! Hahaha I have got one RC2014 Pro and one SC131 and I do feel it is not enough. Well I have got another RC2014 backplane completely built...just waiting for populating the 15 slots available :)

Thanks a lot.

Kind regards,

Alberto

[Alberto C.]

Hi guys,

So I have enabled hardware flow control in minicom but unfortunately still no luck. I get the following error message:

Modem sectors/kbytes sent:   0/ 0kRetry 0: Got 4b for sector ACK     |    

    |Retry 0: NAK on sector                                                |    

B>XM|Retry 0: NAK on sector                                                |    

    |Retry 0: NAK on sector                                                |    

XMOD|Retry 0: NAK on sector                                                |    

RomW|Retry 0: NAK on sector        

And then:

++ Receive cancelled ++   

++ Partial file deleted ++      

Any thoughts please?

Thanks a lot!

Kind regards,

Alberto

[Richard Deane]

Check that your rom and sd is the latest. 

Perhaps try a different serial USB adapter , there are 3 or 4 chip flavours and some are not as good as others. Also genuine Ftdi versus dodgy fake.

I don't recollect which baud rate you mentioned. Drop to 57600.

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[Alberto C.]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your help!

I don't have any SD card inserted.

I have tried with 2 different FTDI converters but to no avail. 

I have been using 115200. When I drop it to 57600 I just get garbage on my screen.

Thanks!

[Wayne Warthen]

To lower the baud rate in RomWBW, you will need to use the MODE command from the CP/M command prompt first.

You probably want to enter "MODE COM0: 57600 /P".  You will then be prompted to change the baud rate on Minicom.  After changing both sides, you should have non-garbled characters and you can try XM again.

Thanks, Wayne

[michael....@gmail.com]

Hi Alberto,

I just tested this using an SC131 and minicom running on a linux system (Raspberry Pi). It worked fine at 115200.

The only configuration I had to do was select the serial port and check hardware flow control was selected.

Then I noticed you are running minicom on a Mac.  I normally use a program called Serial on my Mac, and I can sucessfully send files to the SC131 using xmodem at 115200 with that.  But I do have minicom on my Mac, so I tried that and had similar results to you!   This is strange because I seem to recall that it worked some time ago.   The minicom version on linux is 2.8, the Mac version is 2.7.1. I'll try to find time to dig into this a bit more over the weekend. 

Cheers,

Mike

[Alberto C.]

Hi Wayne,

That did the trick indeed! I can confirm that after changing the baud rate both sides I was finally able to transfer my files successfully!

Just for reference, it was not necessary to enable the hardware flow control.

Thanks again!

On Friday 14 June 2024 at 01:53:18 UTC+1 Wayne Warthen wrote:

[Alberto C.]

Hi Mike,

Many thanks for finding the time to replicate my issue. Much appreciated!

As per my response to Wayne above, I have managed to get it to work.

Yes, at some point I will get Serial as well. It looks awesome!

I have got minicom 2.9 on my macbook.

Thanks again for your help as well!

[Wayne Warthen]

Hi Alberto,

Glad it is now working for you.

I took the time to replicate what you were doing and I can confirm that minicom 2.9 on macOS fails in the way you describe at 115200 baud (even when hardware flow control was enabled).  I also confirmed that reducing the baud rate to 57600 allowed it to work properly.

I then tried using minicom (2.8.1) on my Raspberry Pi.  This worked fine at 115200 baud with flow control enabled.  It failed in the same way as minicom on macOS when flow control was disabled.

I am suspicious that the current version of minicom on macOS is not properly enabling flow control.  I would need to hook up my logic analyzer to prove that, but I don't have time for right now.  I don't have Serial2 for my Mac, but if that works at 115200 baud with flow control, it is further evidence that flow control is not being enabled on macOS via the latest minicom.

Thanks,

Wayne

[Alberto Calò]

Hi Wayne,

Thanks so much again for taking the time to carry out further investigations for me. Thanks for the further clarifications as well. Very much appreciated.

Thanks again!

Kind regards,

Alberto

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[michael....@gmail.com]

Wayne,

That makes sense I think, if I recall correctly, the default baud rate in RomWBW used to be 57600. This may be why I remember this working previously.

Thanks,

Mike

[Wayne Warthen]

On Saturday, June 15, 2024 at 12:47:49 AM UTC-7 michael....@gmail.com wrote:

That makes sense I think, if I recall correctly, the default baud rate in RomWBW used to be 57600. This may be why I remember this working previously.

Well, no, the default baud rate for SCxxx has always been 115200.  I am a little perplexed by this behavior on macOS.  I can tell you that I did some more testing and I can say definitively on my Mac that rts/cts flow control is not working properly via minicom (well, it works somewhat randomly).  It is working correctly on my Raspberry Pi.  I don't understand this.

Thanks, Wayne