Commander X16

Are there any guides or tutorials for the Commander X16 921.6 Kbps Serial & ESP32 Network card from Texelec.com? I received it a few days ago and the box contained the card and antenna but no documentation. On Texelec.com's web page for the network card there is a description that outlines installation but the ROMTERM.ZIP link doesn't work so I'm looking for further information. The other links on that page do work.

Thank you,
Gerry

I had some notes on the earlier serial cards, but not really a concise guide - now that these v1.1 are officially out, probably time to update that.

David has a version of his ROMTERM in the first thread here (at the moment this is version 1.26 from about August 2024):
viewtopic.php?t=7652

There is a 1.27 version, I'll ping him to see if he's ready to officially release that.


Do you have the Lazer3D case? This card will require the 90-degree "riser adapter" for the Lazer3D case. Because even with the top-lid off, the serial card won't fit in the Lazer3D due to the 9-pin serial cable adapter hitting the top of the rear panel.
And the card won't fit in the side-slot of the standard Lazer3D case. The blue base of the PCB won't clear the slot. I think a little side-slot extender should probably be-a-thing someday.

Once you have the card into any of the slots - the only other setup is attaching the antenna.

If you only want to null-modem cable connect to another systems or want to only use a WiModem-type device, then you don't need the WiFi-antenna stuff. But, >90% most folks will probably want to use the built in WiFi feature.

The WiFi/Serial card uses ZiModem (Zimmerman, not related to ZModem). So all its commands are documented at its github repo, available here:
https://github.com/bozimmerman/Zimodem
(with the main first command is "AT+CONFIG" to setup the WiFi connection, the next useful is probably setting the baud rate).

The back of the Serial/Network card has a label describing the dip-switch settings. No real reason to adjust those, unless using multiple serial cards in the same system. ROMTERM will detect which port settings and highlight them.

If you selected a port and see "garbage" text characters, that usually indicates the wrong baud rate has been selected.


After that, you might be interested in BASTERM - it's not as feature-full (e.g. no ANSI, but can support CBM codes), and limited to lower speeds. But it's starter-code on how to programmatically access to the serial stuff on your own:
viewtopic.php?p=34240

Thanks Voidstar. I see you have a YouTube channel. Ever considered doing a tutoral on the X16 an/or its perpherals?

Gerry

I have built and modified the Lazer 3D case tonight. I posted my results in the earlier email in X16 General Chat.

Thank you
Gerry

I ran ROMTerm 1.26 tonight and I was able to connect to my wifi (SpectrumSetup-F16A:23). I saved my settings and the Zimodem ESP32 banner pops up with firmware v4.0.2 and identifies the local I/P address as 192.168.1.8 for this CX16 board (which is correct for my local LAN). Then it says ready.

Since this card is brand new and the "My notes on Starting Cold w/Network Card" posting (posted last July) talks about updating the ESP32 firmware, I assume my card doesn't need that since I received it about a week ago. But when I tried adt"vert.synchro.net" and adt"213.136.8.188" doesn't do anything. Put a space between the adt and the first ' " ' but no change.

So where and how do I go from here?

Thank you,
Gerry

Found the issue, instead of using the 'adt' command, try using the 'atd' command. That worked for me.

Gerry

Ah, sorry didn't see that earlier.

Each Modem can technically use its own commands, but most of them out there will use some form of "Hayes-compatible" AT commands. So a good rule of thumb is all the modem commands should start with "AT" (attention).

And this in case, ATD with quotes is how ZiModem decided to do it. Some other WiModems don't require the double quotes. For me with the USR modems, I always used ATDT (or maybe that was just what we had to use when using real-phone lines).

Glad you got it going!

voidstar wrote: ↑Tue Dec 24, 2024 12:19 am Ah, sorry didn't see that earlier.

Each Modem can technically use its own commands, but most of them out there will use some form of "Hayes-compatible" AT commands. So a good rule of thumb is all the modem commands should start with "AT" (attention).

And this in case, ATD with quotes is how ZiModem decided to do it. Some other WiModems don't require the double quotes. For me with the USR modems, I always used ATDT (or maybe that was just what we had to use when using real-phone lines).

Glad you got it going!

Specifically, the "T" means tone dialing, and you could dial a number without the "T". You'd have to set the default dialing mode with a different AT command.

Zimodem is a little different, in that the "T" means "Telnet." So you'd use ATDT to dial an address in Telnet mode, which uses the $FF byte as an escape character to set and query terminal options. The other mode is TCP mode (Just ATD with no T at the end), which disconnects the Telnet processing.