[PilotMgr] Terminal and PPP through cradle (was: Re: telnet client on palm pilot)

["Andreas S. Oesterhelt" <oes@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

> ok, now i have ptelnet.  And i can now telnet to unix boxes using my
> omnisky services. but how about i want to the unix box's serial port,
> where do i get a cable for that.

The cradle will do just fine. Trouble is, mgetty requires the DCD line
to be high, but the cradle cable has no DCD line. 

So what I did is to modify the cable between the PC motherboard (or serial
card) and the 9-pin RS232 connector of the PC. I put the line that
previously went to pin 1 (DCD) on pin 4 (DTR). So the computer feeds its
own DTR signal right into its DCD line. Funny modem, never loses the
carrier. Now you have to set "toggle-dtr no" in mgetty.config to prevent
mgetty from toggling DTR on startup, causing a DCD drop = hangup.

If you port is 25 pin (with 3com adaptor), check
http://www.cesium.com/pilotdtr/ for pin assignment.

While you're at it, you can also connect the cable from pin 6 (DSR, which 
the pilot totally ignores) to pin 4, too (makes three cables on that pin)
and thus elegantly implement the battery drain fix proposed on
http://www.conklinsystems.com/pilot/drainfix.shtml and
http://www.cesium.com/pilotdtr/ . I prefer soldering a $0,50 part
instead of the holy cradle.

If you're no friend of re-soldering your hardware, you can alternatively
use PPP right from the cradle with no modifications, but should be aware
that your batteries will be sucked empty while online:

On the pilot, use the magic phonenumber "00" that supresses modem
initialization and an empty chat script. On unix, "stty 19200 < /dev/pilot"
regardless of what you set in the pilot (Pilot bug, fixed by DirectLink
and LinkDirect -> handago.com) and start pppd on the line, setting the
"local" option to ignore DCD. Parameters that work fine for me:

pppd debug local lock proxyarp <my_ip>:<palm_ip> /dev/pilot

Funny enough, you can do the same with your xcopilot on its pseudo-serial!

HTH,
--Andreas



------------------------------------------------------------------------
***********************************************************
*             This is a public mailing list!              *
* Please do not publish Sun proprietary information here! *
*        -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -         *
* MoreInfo/Unsubscribe @  http://www.moshpit.org/pilotmgr *
***********************************************************