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Arduino Altair--USB serial

PostPosted: June 30th, 2019, 7:17 am
by mail@gabrielegan.com
I realize that this isn't quite on our topic, but . . .

I've just bought from Ebay <(https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254258442714 ... 4258442714> an Arduino based Altair 8800 clone. It came with no 'get-you-started' instructions and the advert said to simply Google 'David Hansel Altair'. I did and got a single PDF of documentation but it doesn't have a get-you-started section and posting on Hansel's forum 9 days ago hasn't got me an answer, so I thought I'd try here.

The Arduino Altair has two USB sockets, and plugging the one labelled "Programming" into the USB port on a PC gives the Arduino Altair power so I can do front panel operations. But this "Programming" port is also supposed to be mapped to the Arduino Altair's SIO board and the documentation says "After connecting a USB cable to the Programming Port of the
Arduino it will show up on a PC as a serial interface", so the user can invoke a Configuration Menu (like on the AltairClone) and get started setting it up. But this serial interface on the PC doesn't show up for me: TeraTerm can't see it.

Any thoughts why my PC can't see the Arduino Altair's serial port as a serial device?

Regards

Gabriel

Re: Arduino Altair--USB serial

PostPosted: July 1st, 2019, 1:16 am
by TomXP411
The device you purchased uses the Altairduino firwmare. You'll want to come over to the Altairduino Google Group.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/altair-duino

David maintains the latest Altairduino source code at https://github.com/dhansel/Altair8800

Short version - you need to install the Arduino drivers to get that to work; you'll also need to set up an SD card with your disk images. All of that is available on the GitHub page.