219 lines
11 KiB
HTML
219 lines
11 KiB
HTML
|
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
|
|||
|
<html><head><title>Utilizing the USR Pilot with Linux</title></head>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<body>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<H4>
|
|||
|
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more lovable!</I>"
|
|||
|
<IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE SRC="../gx/heart.gif"> </H4>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<P> <HR> <P>
|
|||
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<center><table cellpadding=5><tr>
|
|||
|
<td><img width=79 height=98 src=./gx/mcduffie/pilot.gif alt=USR Pilot></td>
|
|||
|
<td><center><font size=+3>Utilizing the US Robotics Pilot with Linux</font><br>
|
|||
|
by James McDuffie,<a href=mailto:mcduffie@scsn.net>mcduffie@scsn.net</a></center></td>
|
|||
|
</tr></table></center>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<hr>
|
|||
|
<h2>Why the Pilot?</h2>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
There are a lot of Personal Digital Assistants available on the market
|
|||
|
these days. These include the Newton, Windows CE machines, and Psion. But
|
|||
|
the PDA being discussed here is the US Robotics Pilot. Before purchasing a
|
|||
|
PDA I thought carefully about a number of issues. These included cost,
|
|||
|
portability, and how well it could be expanded.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The are a couple reasons why I purchased the Pilot. For one thing the
|
|||
|
Pilot is not very expensive. The Pilot comes in two different versions,
|
|||
|
called the Pilot 1000 and the Pilot 5000. These are the exact same except
|
|||
|
for the amount of memory they have loaded. The Pilot 1000 has 128k of
|
|||
|
memory while the Pilot 5000 has 512k of memory. What I did was purchase a
|
|||
|
Pilot 1000 and a 1 MB upgrade chip at the same time. This way I saved
|
|||
|
money in the long run than if I had purchased a Pilot 5000 and then later
|
|||
|
upgraded to 1 MBB of memory. The Pilot is considerably cheaper than other
|
|||
|
PDAs. Such as the Newton which is priced as under $800. The Pilot 1000
|
|||
|
can be found for as low as $224 and the Pilot 5000 for as low as $269.
|
|||
|
The 1 MB upgrade chip can be found for as little as $89. Prices such as
|
|||
|
this make the Pilot a cost effective solution.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Another issue was how portable the Pilot is. Carrying around a heavy PDA
|
|||
|
all day is not very comfortable. But the Pilot is very portable. It
|
|||
|
measures 4.7 x 3.2 x .7 inches, small enough to fit comfortably in your
|
|||
|
hand. The Pilot only weighs 5.7 ounces, with batteries. Because of this
|
|||
|
the Pilot can fit comfortably in your shirt pocket or your pants pocket.
|
|||
|
The Pilot's power supply is two 2 triple A batteries. These batteries can
|
|||
|
last you up to a month if you use the Pilot moderately. After all a PDA is
|
|||
|
supposed to help you, not burden you down by being bulky and heavy.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The Pilot is very expandable too. Such is the case with the 1 MB
|
|||
|
upgrade chip that can be purchased from varies places. I find that 1 MB
|
|||
|
of memory is more than enough memory for my needs. The Pilot is also
|
|||
|
expandable in that you can upload any of numerous shareware or commercial
|
|||
|
applications for the Pilot. There is even a program that allows you to
|
|||
|
hook your Pilot up to a modem and dial into your ISP and then check your
|
|||
|
POP mail! These applications are very small. The average application
|
|||
|
made for the Pilot runs about 10k. With a 1 MB chip you could
|
|||
|
theoretically have 100 10k apps on the Pilot. The Pilot features a RS-232
|
|||
|
serial connector on the bottom of it. The connector is used for syncing
|
|||
|
the Pilot with your desktop computer or for other uses. Other uses
|
|||
|
include hooking up a modem or hooking up a soon to be release wireless
|
|||
|
modem and pager. The Pilot can grow as your need for it grows.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<hr>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<h2>Using the Pilot with Linux</h2>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Right now there is software available for use with the Pilot and Linux and
|
|||
|
other Unix flavors. You can obtain the software for use with Linux
|
|||
|
from:<br>
|
|||
|
<a href=ftp://ns1.pfnet.com/pub/PalmOS>ftp://ns1.pfnet.com/pub/PalmOS/</a><br>
|
|||
|
This software is still in development, but is highly usable. To use this
|
|||
|
software all you have to do is get the latest pilot-link package and
|
|||
|
untar/ungzip it. Once you have it expanded all it takes is to run the
|
|||
|
<i>configure</i> script and then do a <i>make</i>. You will then have
|
|||
|
about 16 programs depending on what version you have. I suggest that you
|
|||
|
install all of these programs into their own directory. I have mine
|
|||
|
installed in /usr/local/pilot and have included this directory in my path
|
|||
|
statement. This will make it easier for you to play around with the
|
|||
|
software. If you want to run the software as any user other than root,
|
|||
|
you will have to set them suid root. I have done this but restricted
|
|||
|
their execution to a group that only my login is a member of. This allows
|
|||
|
the software to execute the serial port.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The software is simple enough to use. You simply supply supply the program
|
|||
|
name, the serial port and other information such as a filename. The
|
|||
|
pilot-xfer program allows you to install programs or data files that
|
|||
|
programs use into the Pilot. To install program all you would have to do
|
|||
|
is use the command <i>pilot-xfer /dev/cua?? -i [program name]</i>. After
|
|||
|
entering this your press the hot-sync button on the Pilot cradle and the
|
|||
|
Pilot installs the program. The program is then available for immediate
|
|||
|
use. Or if you wanted to install a text file into the memo you would
|
|||
|
simply enter <i>install-memo /dev/cua?? [file name]</i>. There are plenty
|
|||
|
of other programs that help you transfer information with other
|
|||
|
applications such as the date book, the address book and the to do list.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
For me, the name of these programs are pretty long and with typing the
|
|||
|
serial device name it gets tedious fast. So I set up a couple of aliases
|
|||
|
to speed up things. Some of my aliases are:<br>
|
|||
|
alias pxi='pilot-xfer /dev/cua2 -i'<br>
|
|||
|
alias im='install-memo /dev/cua2'<br>
|
|||
|
These are the functions I use the most, because I hardly ever download
|
|||
|
applications from my Pilot since I already have them on my hard drive.
|
|||
|
The same goes for memos I install. But for the information that I create
|
|||
|
in the Pilot I use the <i>sync-memodir</i> program. It puts every memo in
|
|||
|
a separate fill. But the down side is that does not put the files in
|
|||
|
categories as they are on your Pilot. The up side is that the Windows
|
|||
|
software is not required.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<hr>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<h2>What to do if you do not have a free serial port</h2>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
One problem I encountered was that I did not have a free serial port. My
|
|||
|
mouse is on cua0 and my modem on cua1. For a while I had to switch the
|
|||
|
Pilot cradle with my modem. This was highly annoying because I could not
|
|||
|
use the modem while I was playing with my Pilot. I solved this with a $29
|
|||
|
dollar ISA card I found at a local computer story, local as in locally
|
|||
|
owned and operated. The card is called the COM-5 card and is manufactured
|
|||
|
by Mouse Systems.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The card is useful because if COM1 and COM2 are in use then COM3 and COM4
|
|||
|
are not available. A COM port is simply a label that identifies a
|
|||
|
specific IRQ and address. COM1 and COM3 share the same IRQ as does COM2
|
|||
|
and COM4. But this card allows you to add another serial port at any
|
|||
|
combination of IRQ and address that you desire. I have mine set on IRQ 12
|
|||
|
and address 238. To get this to work with Linux all I had to do was tell
|
|||
|
Linux to map this specific address and IRQ combination to the device
|
|||
|
/dev/cua2. The following command does this:<br>
|
|||
|
setserial /dev/cua2 port 0x238 irq 12 autoconfig<br>
|
|||
|
It tell Linux where the serial port is available and to what device to
|
|||
|
map it. With this working I was able to play around with my Pilot while
|
|||
|
using my modem. Also I now have an extra serial port should I need it for
|
|||
|
other tasks.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<hr>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<h2>Logging in to a Linux computer via the Pilot</h2>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Logging into a Linux computer via the Pilot is possible. It is not really
|
|||
|
that hard once you have the correct software. All you need is the
|
|||
|
application called Simple Term which can be obtained from Adam's Software
|
|||
|
Archive listed in the links section. Install the software on the Pilot
|
|||
|
and then make sure the Pilot is hooked up to the serial port. Run agetty
|
|||
|
on the serial device such as with this command:<br>
|
|||
|
/sbin/agetty 19200 cua2 vt100<br>
|
|||
|
And then put the Pilot in the cradle and hit online. You should then be
|
|||
|
able to talk with your Linux computer. The reason this works with the
|
|||
|
cradle is because the cradle is basically just a null modem hook up to
|
|||
|
the computer. Because of this a null modem adapter put on the cradle will
|
|||
|
allow you to use the Pilot on a modem, because of the fact that it
|
|||
|
reverses the null modem feature of the cradle. Logging into your Linux
|
|||
|
computer via the Pilot is not the most useful thing in the world since
|
|||
|
the program does not contain any terminal emulation. But it is possible
|
|||
|
which makes it fun.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<hr>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<h2>Links</h2>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<a href=http://www.usr.com/palm/>US Robotics Pilot Page</a><br>
|
|||
|
<a href=http://www.pilot.org/>Scott's Pilot Page</a><br>
|
|||
|
<a href=http://www.inforamp.net/~adam/pilot/>Adam's USR Pilot Software Archive</a><br>
|
|||
|
<a href=http://members.aol.com/aslan/index.html>Aslan's Pilot PDA Links</a><p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
These links should be enough to learn about the US Robotics Pilot and how
|
|||
|
to use them. I hope this information will be helpful. If you have any
|
|||
|
questions what so ever, please contact me.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<hr>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<h2>Pilot-Unix Mailing List</h2>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
The pilot-unix mailing list is for discussion and idea-sharing for those
|
|||
|
interested in using the US Robotics Pilot PDAs with UNIX systems. This
|
|||
|
includes people who are interested in helping to develop tools to allow the
|
|||
|
Pilot to operate with UNIX, and possibly to develop an SDK for the Pilot
|
|||
|
for Unix.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
All postings to the list should be sent to the address<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
pilot-unix@lists.best.com<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Commands, such as subscribe or unsubscribe requests should be sent to the
|
|||
|
address<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
pilot-unix-request@lists.best.com<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
Note that there are two list modes - normal (you receive each message as it
|
|||
|
is sent) and digest. The default mode is digest mode. To subscribe to the
|
|||
|
digest, send an email message with the single word "subscribe" in the
|
|||
|
message body to "pilot-unix-request@lists.best.com". To subscribe to the
|
|||
|
normal list, use the word "subsingle" in the message body. You can also get
|
|||
|
a list of commands which the list server understands by sending mail with
|
|||
|
the single word "help" in the body to the -request address.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
If you have administrative questions or requests which require the
|
|||
|
intervention of a person, please send those to<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
pilot-unix-owner@lists.best.com.<p>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|||
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|||
|
<center><H5>Copyright © 1997, James McDuffie <BR>
|
|||
|
Published in Issue 14 of the Linux Gazette</H5></center>
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
<!--===================================================================-->
|
|||
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|||
|
<A HREF="./index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../gx/indexnew.gif"
|
|||
|
ALT="[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]"></A>
|
|||
|
<A HREF="../index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../gx/homenew.gif"
|
|||
|
ALT="[ FRONT PAGE ]"></A>
|
|||
|
<A HREF="./procmail.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/back2.gif"
|
|||
|
ALT=" Back "></A>
|
|||
|
<A HREF="./stronghold.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/fwd.gif" ALT=" Next "></A>
|
|||
|
<P> <hr> <P>
|
|||
|
</BODY>
|
|||
|
</HTML>
|