That's really good news. I'd love for the Android mComm to auto-launch
when the serial device is attached. As it stands this requires lots of
tapping on my part, partly because it's constantly re-asking for
serial device permission :(

On Sat, Mar 31, 2018 at 2:11 PM, Kurt McCullum <[email protected]> wrote:
> I’ve been working on my stand alone Android TV TPDD box. Initial tests are
> very promising. I have managed to tweak mComm so that whenever a USB to
> serial adapter is inserted into an Android TV Box (Or phone), mComm starts.
> I’ve added an AutoStart checkbox to it to tell the software to go into TPDD
> mode. What this allows me to do is have a very inexpensive Android TV box
> act as a stand-alone TPDD drive. The only cables hooked up to the box are
> power and the USB serial adapter. The device is running Android 6.0.1, has
> 1Gig of ram (Of which 512mb is being used by the system) and 8 gigs of
> storage (Of which 3.25 gigs is being used by the system). What I end up with
> is a 4.75GB TPDD emulator. To put that in floppy disk terms, that equals
> just under 50 thousand TPDD1 floppies or just under 25 thousand TPDD2
> floppies. All enclosed in a 4”x4”x1” square. More than enough for anyone I
> would imagine.
>
>
>
> Current issues that need to be ironed out are as follows.
>
> 1.       No current way two automatically switch between TPDD and Virtual
> modem mode. Not a huge issue and I think I may be able to solve this
> eventually.
>
> 2.       If you unplug the TV box and then plug it back in (Or reboot) with
> the USB to serial adapter plugged in, mComm tries to start but doesn’t work
> properly. I’m working on this in code and hope to have a solution soon.
>
> 3.       If you don’t have WiFi or Ethernet enabled, there is no way to set
> the clock. So the system time starts at 1/1/1970. Not sure there is anything
> I can do about this one but it is what it is.
>
> 4.       Only FTDI and Prolific serial adapters are able to autostart mComm
> when plugged in. Sorry, but I don’t have any other kinds and since those are
> the big two, I figure it’s not a huge deal.
>
> 5.       Injecting TS-DOS or TEENY requires 4 lines of BASIC code rather
> than a couple button pushes on the screen. Since there is no screen, this is
> how it has to be done.
>
> 6.       It’s not mobile. That’s just the reality of the power supply. 5v
> 2amp. REX or your Android phone should be used for this. Or if you are lucky
> enough to have a NADSBox, then you don’t need any of this.
>
>
>
> That’s all for now. I’ll keep everyone up to date on the progress. I plan to
> post how to build one yourself, but if there is interest I could put these
> together and offer them for sale.
>
>
>
> Kurt

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