Serial adapter success and failure stories, post here!

[Fred]

I'll kick this off...

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Dick Smith USB -> Serial adapter XH8290 with linux lsusb result :

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Bus 001 Device 012: ID 0403:6001 Future Technology Devices International, Ltd FT232 USB-Serial (UART) IC

Results of loading latest firmware with this is :

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FLASH write: image size <53316 B> time <13.66 s> rate <3903 B/s>
Firmware load was successful!

Slow!!

Additionally, the load sometimes dies with strange errors before it starts, not an issue really, but could be indicative of other things.

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Maplin/Nikkai Computers USB -> Serial adapter ZP43W with linux lsusb result :

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Bus 001 Device 003: ID 067b:2303 Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2303 Serial Port

Result from loading latest firmware with this is :

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FLASH write: image size <53316 B> time <7.71 s> rate <6915 B/s>
Firmware load was successful!

Nearly twice as fast as the dickies one... glad that bug cropped up and made me go and buy another...

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Hopefully as my and Aaron's code mature together we will get to know that they are both reliable and be able to firmly point the finger at hardware issues. Of course it will purely be a speed thing as checksumming etc guarantees reliable comms if they make it through at all.

Post your stories of serial trouble and success with Linux and Windows on FreeEMS or MS or any other serial device that gives it a good work out.

My call right now : PL2303 >> FT232

Your thoughts?

Fred.

[jbelanger]

Try playing with the buffer size for both adapters. I'm almost sure this will have a major impact. Since there is not hardware handshaking, using the smallest buffers should help.

Jean

[Fred]

How does one "play with the buffer size" of these things?

Fred.

[jbelanger]

In Windows, you do it in the device manager in the advanced settings of the port properties. On Linux, I have no idea. I can only imagine that there is some equivalent.

Jean

[Fred]

I can't find anything with my mediocre google skills for linux. I suspect the driver to kernel interface is different on linux and perhaps it isn't configurable because it doesn't need to be. I know that ethernet is approximately twice as slow on a win box as a lin box with all else equal. win just sucks in so many ways :-)

7kB/s is pretty decent considering the wait time for erase of each block etc. I never suspected that 4 was to slow as 12 or so is theoretical max with no pauses. The same adapter shows full speed with cutecom and applications, just loading through it with hcs12mem seems to be slower than on the other device.