Serial Port/USB

On a machine (this is not a Raspberry Pi) with several USB ports, how do I tell OS_SerialOp which of the USB ports has incoming serial data? Or does it look at them all?

Doesn’t SerialOp always only talk to the internal hardware serial port?

If you have a USB serial device, you’ll need Colin’s USB driver, and to talk to it via a DeviceFS handle (though if you’re familiar with serial blockdrivers, that’s possibly a simpler option?).

For my weather station, I simply open two file handles (input and output) passing the serial format as a special string. That is to say:

device$ = "SerialUSB#baud=2400;data=8;stop=1;noparity;nohandshake;noblock:"
out% = OPENOUT(device$)
in%  = OPENIN(device$)

Then just BGET and BPUT as necessary.

If you need to fiddle with the data control lines (the weather station needs RTS on and DTR pulsed to wake it up), the OS_Args SWI with IOCTL commands to the output handle will do that. Get back to me if you need some example code. I won’t write it below as I’m writing this on my phone and automangle really loves snippets of code. ;)

Does SerialUSB work on the Pinebook and Pinebook Pro?

Chris, you’d want latest XAT SerialDev installed – check !Boot.Resources. On top of that, you’d need a compatible USB→Serial adapter. There are a variety of chips and some are better than others. I want to say that FTDI is the desireable one, but that’s a vague, unsubstantiated memory. Might be best to check the XAT website.

I have a couple of GPS devices which send serial data via a cable which just has a USB plug on the end. So it should be just a matter of using SerialUSB to open an input stream. I am obviously doing something wrong as I can’t even get this going on a Pi! Or the Pinebook for that matter.

nq. I want to say that FTDI is the desireable one, but that’s a vague, unsubstantiated memory.

My car has a diagnostic port which is accessed via a usb-serial FTDI adapter. However when I bought one, and installed the matching software on a laptop, it didn’t work. There are variations within FTDI, and I got a less effective one – or a fake.

*USBDevices shows a list of the recognised devices, at the hardware connection level anyway.
Colins !USBdescriptor or XAT’s !USBInfo should find the four digit ID’s so you can search for the type of chipset.

USB descriptor says vendor id 1546 device 1a7 for one and the other is 1546/1a8but I am none the wiser…

DeviceID

There won’t need to be a ‘driver’ for the device itself, all it needs is something on the RISC OS side to read the serial stream. Who cares what is producing it. It is the USB host chip on the RISC OS side that the RISC OS module needs to drive.

I have downloaded !SerialDev but the !Serial app shows no serial ports despite there being two USB sockets on the Pi as well as the GPIO TX and RX pins on the 40 pin header (which OS_SerialOp drives). Puzzled.

That looks like a CDC-ACM device, they fall outside the two main supported groups.
ISTR Colin doing something later on. My old Alcatel cellphone potentially could become a serial port modem with this interface using AT commands, probably Windows stuff could.

I use a GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS Receiver which is a PL2303 device and Colin’s SerialUSB module. It works well on the PineBook. I have not tested it yet on my PineBook Pro, but I see no reason why it would not. Like Ronald, I suspect that your receiver is not one of the types supported by SerialUSB module.

Many thanks for this. I thought I would try two cheap ones in case they worked. This is a bit more expensive but I should be able to get it to work with SatNav and RiscOSM.

That will be a very welcome addition to SatNav and RISCOSM.

Hmmm!

I have put the XAT !SerialDev into Boot Resources but get the following:

>LIST
   10REM >_TestSer
   20OSCLI("RMEnsure SerialUSB 0.13 Error This app requires SerialUSB")
   30fsub%=OPENIN("SerialUSB#baud=4800;data=8;stop=1;noparity;nohanshake;noblock:")
   40PRINT "fsb=";fsub%
   50REPEAT
   60  PRINT CHR$(BGET#fsub%);
   70UNTIL 0
>RUN
Filing system or path SerialUSB: not present at line 30
>

What am I doing wrong please? I am told this device works with SerialUSB.

Vendor is 67b item is 23a3 a GlobalSat BU-353-S4 USB GPS Receiver which is a PL2303 device. It is actually marked BU353-N5 on the box but was ordered as a BU-353-S4 and the documentation with it shows it as a BU353-N5 (an upgrade to the BU 353-S4) and confirms that it uses a PL2303 driver.

 fsub%=OPENIN("SerialUSB#baud=4800;....  

To check first:
• With USBInfo , check that your device appears well, in the tree structure, then check the name of the seller and the product.ex PL2303 (get the usb port number)
• If Ok use !Serial from XAR to see your device and if it is active.
• You can use *Filer_OpenDir Devices:$ and your device is named SerialUSB1
• An other command is *usbdevices_info (SerialUsb Module)
• With the !ResRec (Resource Recover) application, check that the port is not already in use.In this case it is necessary to close the ports which correspond to the USB number noted previously.I test with a Prolific USB serial PL2303 dongle, the USB number is USB12

  30fsub%=OPENIN("SerialUSB#baud=4800;data=8;stop=1;noparity;nohanshake;noblock:") 

 30fsub%=OPENIN("USB12#baud=4800;data=8;stop=1;noparity;nohanshake;noblock:") 

Attention the USB number changes on each reset or connexion!
We can solve this problem but it is a bit more complicated.

But to make it much simpler !Hearsay (version 2.24 ) allows you to communicate directly, it will detect your serial port and display it under the icon of the iconbar.You just have to adjust the parameters and choose a communication protocol if necessary.
Thanks to Colin Granville.

I will start with this solution, to test the NMEA protocol.

1. File ‘USBInfo’ not found

2. !Serial from XAT does not see the device.

3. Using Filer_OpenDir it is shown as USB4 (there are lpr and USB1 to USB9)

1. File ‘USBInfo’ not found

http://www.xat.nl/riscos/sw/usb/usbinfo.htm

nohandshake sp.?

Now using USB4 instead of SerialUSB in the OPENIN command, I am getting data but it is gobbldegook. I suspect it is not 4800 baud 8bit 1 stop bit as stated … Guesswork begins.

High Speed NMEA @ 38400?

I have tried 1200,2400,4800,9600,19200,38400 and 76800 all give gobbldegook.

*help modules
or
*help block driver serialusb
Would show what has actually loaded

Firstly it looks as though the expensive device was broken on delivery and was just producing garbage. I tried it on the Pinebook and Raspberry Pi and no joy. !Serial didn’t see it and it produced garbage.

Many thanks for all the help. The expensive unit proved to be duff and the cheap units are not supported by SerialUSB.

I have abandoned SerialUSB in favour of direct access and one of the cheaper devices works. Now to find a way of discovering the USB# number in software. Bit of a hack but there’s no useful SWI.

It needs to use OS_GBPB rather than BGET so that it doesn’t block. Lines 300 and 310 are intended as a drop in replacement for the following line in SatNav:

2370 SYS "OS_SerialOp",4,-1 TO ,r1% ;r2%

>LIST
   10REM >FindUSB
   20REM Use *USBDevices to list devices
   30OSCLI("USBDevices { > DevList }")
   40usbdev%=OPENIN("DevList")
   50a$=GET$#usbdev%
   60j%=INSTR(a$,"Description")
   70s$="u-blox"
   80i%=0
   90usbn%=0
  100REPEAT
  110  IF MID$(a$,j%,6)=s$ THEN usbn%=VAL(MID$(a$,1,4))
  120  REM IF a$<>"" THEN
  130  REM  PRINT i%;" ";MID$(a$,j%,6);" was ";a$
  140  REM  i%+=1
  150  REM ENDIF
  160  a$=GET$#usbdev%
  170UNTIL EOF#usbdev%
  180CLOSE#usbdev%
  190REM SerialUSB not required
  200:
  210fsub%=OPENIN("USB"+STR$(usbn%)+"#baud=9600;data=8;stop=1;noparity;nohandshake;noblock:")
  220DIM sbuf% 20
  230ON ERROR REPORT:PRINT "at line ";ERL
  240a%=-1
  250PRINT "fsb=";fsub%
  260REPEAT
  270  LOCAL ERROR
  280  ON ERROR CLOSE#fsub%:REPORT:PRINT "retry -----------":fsub%=0:fsub%=OPENIN("USB"+STR$(usbn%)+"#baud=9600;data=8;stop=1;noparity;nohandshake;noblock:")
  290  IF fsub% THEN
  300    SYS "OS_GBPB",4,fsub%,sbuf%,1 TO ,,fend%
  310    IF sbuf%=fend% THEN a%=0:r2%=2 ELSE a%=?sbuf%:r2%=0
  320  ENDIF
  330  RESTORE ERROR
  340  IF fsub% THEN PRINT CHR$a%;
  350  REMIF fsub% THEN IF a%=0 THEN PRINT "[0]";
  360UNTIL fsub%=0 OR INKEY(-99)
  370CLOSE#fsub%
>RUN
fsb=234
$GPTXT,01,01,02,u-blox ag - <a href="http://www.u-blox.com">www.u-blox.com</a>*50
$GPTXT,01,01,02,HW  UBX-G70xx   00070000 FF7FFFFFo*69
$GPTXT,01,01,02,ROM CORE 1.00 (59842) Jun 27 2012 17:43:52*59
$GPTXT,01,01,02,PROTVER 14.00*1E
$GPTXT,01,01,02,ANTSUPERV=AC SD PDoS SR*20
$GPTXT,01,01,02,ANTSTATUS=OK*3B
$GPTXT,01,01,02,LLC FFFFFFFF-FFFFFFFF-FFFFFFFF-FFFFFFFF-FFFFFFFD*2C
{no data for about 1s)
$GPRMC,025506.00,V,,,,,,,071122,,,N*7E
$GPVTG,,,,,,,,,N*30
$GPGGA,025506.00,,,,,0,00,99.99,,,,,,*62
$GPGSA,A,1,,,,,,,,,,,,,99.99,99.99,99.99*30
$GPGLL,,,,,025506.00,V,N*4E

(press SPACE bar)
>

Firstly it looks as though the expensive device was broken on delivery and was just producing garbage

I think you have tested this device with Windows for example?
Nice to see the results sent by your GPS module.
To detect your USB serial link and obtain its USB number, you would need the information obtained with !USBDescriptor or !UsbInfo report just for this device.

For information Colin has developed his module for:
SerialUSB provides a DeviceFS serial interface (SerialUSB:) for USB serial devices
It supports the following USB serial devices: