Assistance needed connecting Strobe to EXT

[Perifractic]

Hi, you're hard to get hold of! Having tried Twitter to no avail, and finding Wordpress won't accept comments at this time, I'd be most grateful of a response here or anywhere.

I simply have 2 questions for the AVR-NET-IO:

1. Which pin is pin 1 of the EXT? A photo would be great showing the Strobe wire connected.
2. Does the AVR-NET-IO require power or will the Amiga parallel port power it?

Thanks in advance! :)

[cnvogelg]

Hi,

just having a RL with 3 little ones :) So updates/comments usually take time...

1. I just added a picture to the plipbox hardware page
2. Yes. Parallel port is not powerful enough to supply the circuit (10mA vs. 300mA...)

Best, Chris

Am 22.03.16 um 00:13 schrieb Cjsnet:

Hi, you're hard to get hold of! Having tried Twitter to no avail, and finding Wordpress won't accept comments at this time, I'd be most grateful of a response here or anywhere.

I simply have 2 questions for the AVR-NET-IO:

1. Which pin is pin 1 of the EXT? A photo would be great showing the Strobe wire connected.
2. Does the AVR-NET-IO require power or will the Amiga parallel port power it?

Thanks in advance! :)

— You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/cnvogelg/plipbox/issues/1

[Perifractic]

The picture at http://lallafa.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/avrnetio_strobe.jpg is great, thank you. Sorry for asking in more than one place, I understand now about the little ones! Thank you and congratulations.

[Perifractic]

Please note a lot of errors with your instructions, that have led to a lot of dead ends and confusion:

A) https://github.com/cnvogelg/plipbox/blob/master/doc/src/amiga.md 2.2:

• The URL for Network Boot Disk is wrong (take care with trigger happy clipboard pasting)
• df0:s/Prefs/Env-Archive/nbddriver should be df0:Prefs... (no s/)
• "Adjust your AmiTCP:bin/startnet and rename the interface to plipbox0" makes no sense. What is "the interface". No such reference in "startnet". See http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1086435&postcount=11

B) https://github.com/cnvogelg/plipbox/blob/master/doc/src/firmware.md

• Please make it much clearer on the "Hardware" page and here, that the AVR-NET-IO must use ISP requiring another purchase to go that route. I lost a day of life trying to flash it via USB Serial, because you only mention that further into the document, not at the start – and most users "start" at the start, then work their way down.

1.3:

• URL for "USBasp" and "kit" are wrong links.

Thank you for all your work and I hope this feedback is useful so future users attempting the project don't have the same problems I did.

I look forward to your reply about "the interface" above.

[cnvogelg]

Thanks for the corrections. I updated the docs in 85a5737.

The AmiTCP section was cleaned up. Initially it contained information for both vanilla AmiTCP installs and the Network Boot Disk. Now I focus on the boot disk alone to avoid confusion.

[Perifractic]

Thank you.

1. Before "Insert this disk into your favorite Amiga emulator and perform the following steps to prepare the disk:" you need a step, "Run the disk once and let it configure itself". Without that step, first boot setup of it will delete plipbox.device as an unwanted file.
2. Please clarify, where/how do I "set plipbox0." IE what does "set" mean? Type?

Thanks again!

On Sun, May 1, 2016, 12:18 Christian Vogelgsang [email protected] wrote:

Thanks for the corrections. I updated the docs in 85a5737 https://github.com/cnvogelg/plipbox/commit/85a5737f97a75f8e5146dd430b429e5a01d23f08 .

The AmiTCP section was cleaned up. Initially it contained information for both vanilla AmiTCP installs and the Network Boot Disk. Now I focus on the boot disk alone to avoid confusion.

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/cnvogelg/plipbox/issues/1#issuecomment-216065491

[Perifractic]

Please assist at http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1087340&postcount=16 Can't get plipbox online using these instructions. Thank you!

[cnvogelg]

I just patched the disk myself (last time I did this was ages ago :)) and re-wrote this section again. Hope this helps...

[Perifractic]

@cnvogelg Things are working great now and I finally am able to send and receive email on an A500. Quite a feat!

2 issues left:

1. The Internet seems to get disconnected after some time (20 mins+) and I have to reboot. Is there something I should be doing / some command, to keep the net alive? It feels like the AVR-NET-IO is failing. (The ethernet LED keeps flashing random patterns so data is being sent/received.)
2. If I simply power cycle the A500 at that point, user-startup fails to get AmiTCP to connect, whereas on a full power cycle of the plipbox itself, the net works perfectly on startup. Therefore, for some reason the AVR-NET-IO needs to be turned off then on every 30 mins in order to keep the net alive.

Any ideas please?

[Perifractic]

@cnvogelg RSVP to the message above.

[cnvogelg]

Please record serial logs from the device from startup until the disconnect happens. Maybe we can see here whats happening.

[Perifractic]

@cnvogelg Good idea. How do I do that?

[cnvogelg]

The AVR-NET-IO has a RS232 serial connector (DB9) next to the ethernet port. You need to connect your PC to this port to record the log. Typically, you'll need a null modem cable and a RS232/serial to USB converter. Then launch a terminal program on your PC (like TeraTerm on Windows) select the COM port of the USB adapter and set 57800 Baud Rate. There you should see the welcome message of the plipbox after power on and errors if something went wrong.