On Jan 28, 2022, at 11:43 PM, Carlos M. Nunez, M.D. <[email protected]> wrote: > 1. Are there any recommended sources for a null modem cable? I would prefer > the PC end to terminate in a USB plug, so I believe it will require a serial > to usb converter somewhere.
You may receive a torrent of responses, as for one reason or another this is an area where quite a few people hold very strong opinions. Personally, I grabbed the first USB/serial null cable I could find that had an FTDI chip: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B008634VJY/ It's unfortunately 9-pin so I had to pick up a 9-to-25 to make use of it, and of course a gender adapter to use with the Tandy. Since I'm pretty much forever going to only have DTE on the serial end of this cable, I went with something null wired. I use it frequently with several different vintage systems on the other end -- in fact I originally bought this to bootstrap an Amiga -- and it works flawlessly. I plug it in and it magically shows up as /dev/ttyUSB0 and I can do whatever I want with it. > Also, any good online information and/or tutorials that walk through the null > modem cable file transfer stuff? TPDD emulation is the main way by which folks get files in and out of the machine. Personally, I just keep a TPDD emulator (LaddieAlpha, as it offers directory support) running in a Docker container and plug in whenever I need to get files in and out, but I have the advantage of having TS-DOS in ROM on the Tandy -- REX makes it possible! Before I got set up with a REX, I bootstrapped TEENY.CO to the system using dlplus and fumbled my way around getting that working. After finding TEENY kind of inconvenient, I bit the bullet and brought TS-DOS over to sit in RAM. It's a satisfactory solution but doesn't leave a ton of working room on the computer. The easiest solution by far is a REX: plug in the board, go through the brief, documented steps to get the REX up, plug into your favorite TPDD emulator, fire up TS-DOS from the REX, and files come and go as you please. I've got a Backpack I want to try for when I start traveling again, but while I'm mostly in the house I prefer to write directly to the ZFS pool over a serial cable. As far as I've seen, nobody's written a step-by-step guide to getting up and running. There are a lot of choices depending on what you're doing, where you're going, what hardware you have and plan to carry with you, and how Windows-y or Android-y a person you are. The basics of how all this works are pretty straightforward once you get your head around the fundamentals but there are tool choices to make for which a one-size-fits-most guide appears somewhat hard to write beyond: "Get REX, set up TPDD emulation to your taste."
