Add pointer to documentation from README

[mikeydelamonde]

Hi there,

Firstly, thanks for writing this - I have frankensteined a Psion 5mx together and want to try to use it!

I have got the build to work - only change was I had to install GNU install so that I could use the -D flag, so changed the Makefile.am to say ginstall -D.

Now it's installed, what do I do now? Do I need to get "ncpd" to run as a daemon? I wondered if there was any docs on the next steps?

Thanks, Mike

[kapfab]

Yes, you need to run ncpd first to establish the connection with the Psion. Something like ncpd -d -s /dev/cu.usbserial-110 should work fine if your USB-to-Serial cable is correctly wired and fully supported by macOS.

Then you can use plpftp, plpprint and sisintall (plpfuse should also work on macOS if you have macFUSE installed).

You can access the documentation with man ncpd, man plpftp, etc. or you can browse the old HTML documentation here: https://plptools.sourceforge.net.

[rrthomas]

Thanks for answering, @kapfab. @mikeydelamonde, if there's something missing or wrong in the docs, please file an issue. I can see in particular that there's no pointer from the README to the docs, so I'll add that.

[kapfab]

Beware, macOS natively supports many (if not most) USB-to-Serial adapters (Silicon Labs, Prolific, FTDI, WCH) but some built-in drivers don’t handle all signals, even though the cable is properly wired…

[kapfab]

Regarding install -D, I don’t know which option is the best for macOS: both install -d (which works in this case as the target is a directory) and ginstall -D will imply a macOS-specific change.

[rrthomas]

install -D is indeed non-portable, I'll fix that too.

[kapfab]

We could use uname to tweak the install command for Linux and macOS, but I don’t know the compatibility status of uname and install on all the other supported OS.

[rrthomas]

I'll make a new release shortly with the fixes included.

[rrthomas]

1.0.17 now released.

[mikeydelamonde]

Apologies for more questions!

I found that my Serial cable has an official driver in the Mac Store so I installed that and it then duly showed up in /dev/ so I ran the following command after making sure that the speed was set correctly on the Psion.

./ncpd -d -v all -b 57600 -s /dev/cu.PL2303G-USBtoUART1310
packet: < DTR:1 RTS:1 DCD:0 DSR:0 CTS:0
packet: linkFAILED
Link: hasFailed: 0, 1
packet: linkFAILED
Link: hasFailed: 1, 1
ncp: hasFailed: 0, 1
packet: linkFAILED
Link: hasFailed: 1, 1
packet: linkFAILED
Link: hasFailed: 1, 1
ncp: restarting
resetting serial connection
serial connection set to 57600 baud, fd=4

Any ideas? Maybe the cable could be bad?

[kapfab]

CTS and DSR should be 1. Just to make sure, is the remote link enabled on your Psion?

[mikeydelamonde]

Hi all, Quick update in case you were interested - I bought a new cable, and it now works!