I was able to assemble my new µKenbak yesterday, and everything went smoothly thanks to the excellent instructions. Great! I had already written my own little program on the emulator, which was also quick to type in and ran just fine. I was thrilled. But then I almost despaired: I couldn't manage to establish a serial connection. I only use Linux and have used SSH before, but never a purely serial connection. I tried many things: listing the serial connections, trying the standard serial connection in Linux (ttyS0), installing various packages and terminal programs – nothing worked. I don't know why I didn't check the obvious first: it was the cable! The internal cable to the USB to UART adapter is OK. The adapter is still micro-USB, but the cable to the outside world now has a USB-C connector. Nice! Unfortunately, the included USB-A to USB-C cable obviously has no data connections, only power. The cable also looked cheap, but since it was included with the kit, I assumed it was also suitable for the serial connection. Unfortunately, it doesn't. It's not a big deal, but just a little note for the kit's makers. So, if you want to use the serial connection: use a USB cable that you have previously tested for reliable data connection! For Linux users among you: with`dmesg | grep tty`
you can display the system messages for the serial connections. When the Kenbak is connected (it does not have to be switched on), something like this will appear:
>cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
That is the Kenbak.
You may also need to enable your user for the “dialout” group so that you can open serial connections. You can do this with:
`sudo usermod -aG dialout youruser`
Replace “youruser” with your user name.
I use GTKTerm as terminal software for the serial connection. It is simple and allows you to easily save the data received from the Kenbak to a file or send a program to the Kenbak. For the connection, you have to enter /dev/ttyUSB0 in the port configuration (if that is the port listed in your dmesg result) and set the speed to the baud rate you select for the connection on the Kenbak. The rest (no parity, 8 bits, no stop bit, no flow control) can remain as default. This works for me.
I hope you have as much fun with it as I am having right now.
