Inexpensive USB (or RS-232) "terminal"

I'm thinking of doing some hobby electronics design, to augment my already busy professional schedule (I like punishment).

The gizmo I'm thinking of building would be used out in the field, by folks who wouldn't always have laptops or wouldn't want to spring for them.

My preference would be to build the gizmo with a USB interface, set up as a modem so that I could just talk to it with a terminal program. But I can see some potential users wanting to do this with a separate terminal.

So -- is there anything already made that consists of nothing more than a USB host with a terminal, and is reasonably cheap? Preferably it would be something that's already sold, that I could just point people to, and preferably it'd retail for less than $100. Or should I be thinking of either not serving that population (since I mostly want to make these for me), or making the thing spit out old-style asynchronous serial?

Suggestions welcome.

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Reply to
Tim Wescott
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Not trying to be smart, but isn't that what an iPad or iPod is? There are any number of similar android devices for under $200 and I have seen some for around $100. I expect you only need to wait a few months for them to be under $100. I can't imagine that with the thousands of apps there isn't a terminal emulator already written.

Rick

Reply to
rickman

AFAIK they don't have USB.

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Reply to
Tim Wescott

There are terminal emulators, but they connect via TCP/IP, not USB/serial.

Yes they do, but they're slaves (devices), not masters (hosts).

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Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! But they went to MARS
                                  at               around 1953!!
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Reply to
Grant Edwards

Even iPads? iPods are certainly slave devices.

Do you know about iPhones? For that matter -- what about typical Android phones and pads?

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Reply to
Tim Wescott

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Perhaps the iPod and iPad don't have USB without using the "special" cable, but I know the android tablet devices support USB. Looking at an online ad they seem to include both types of adapter cables so you can connect to a PC or to peripherals. The Dino Direct web site that I watch doesn't have much technical info so it's hard to tell what they are selling exactly. But I can't imagine they wouldn't support USB devices. Even I can say USB on-the-go.

As to the terminal emulator, why does the program care if it is over a serial port or a TCP/IP connection. I've never seen one on my PC that won't support a serial port. I've seen plenty that won't support TCP/ IP unless a port is faked to look like a COM port like USB does.

Rick

Reply to
spamgoeshere1

Not exactly clear what you're trying to accomplish, and which end of the link you want to be in control. Is this a general purpose device, or can you install drivers on either or both ends to make it work?

There exist bluetooth to (rs-232)serial adapters. I plug them onto serial ports (PIC microcontrollers in my case) and run a terminal program on my bluetooth-enabled PDA. The target is still talking to a serial port and no additional drivers or setup are required.

Cellphones have bluetooth, but I have no idea whether the features required to do this are enabled or blocked.

You could use a bluetooth/usb adapter on the target, but that takes more smarts at the target and requires more setup.

Ditto for USB/WiFI. I never had the energy to implement "sockets", so no experience here.

Reply to
mike

They do with the Camera Connector Kit.. But not drivers.

But they do have serial native (that needs to be brought up to RS-232 levels).

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That is the only non-jailbreak solution I know of. There are a few other term programs in the jailbreak side.

A few people have posted a want of having a RS232 to bluetooth dongle, and using a term program on the iPad to talk BlueTooth serial, but I don't think is possible (at least in the Apple sandbox, perhaps out of the sandbox)..

Reply to
Doug McIntyre

w

Yow! But they went to MARS

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 around 1953!!

I thought I put a reply in here somewhere but I don't see it.

I have looked at android tablets at DinoDirect and they seem to provide two types of cables with their devices, one for a PC USB jack and one for devices.

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I haven't felt good enough about buying stuff from DinoDirect to actually buy one yet, but I'm thinking hard about it. I also don't get why they brag that they come with Android 2.3 and I see that Android 3.x is available. Is the version of Android important? Are the devices easily upgraded?

Not that I need a terminal, but I'd like to put other things on it. For one I'd like to host a GPS navigator program to use with a bluetooth device... if the tablet included bluetooth, which I haven't found yet. I'm not going to add a bluetooth dongle for something that should be included in the durn tablet. They still don't include bluetooth in a lot of laptops yet!!! What's up with that???

Rick

Reply to
spamgoeshere1

id

Yes, it is possible to do it with Android phone, but quite a bit of custom work. You can use a micro with USB host and hub. The micro would have to handle the ADB stack on one and VCOM on another. With data from the VCOM host, you can ADB push data into a ptty and pipe to the Android terminal emulator. It's doable, but ...

Reply to
linnix

few

=A0Yow! But they went to MARS

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 around 1953!!

Having the cable doesn't mean they have the drivers for it.

AFAIK, 2.3 does not have host support.

3.X does

Yes.

Not really.

Reply to
linnix

There's something called a "camera connector" that lets you copy photos from a camera (presumably acting as a USB mass-storage device) to an iP[oa]d. Not sure if the iPad is acting as a USB host or if the "connector" is a host that transfers data from one device to another. I get the impression it might be the latter.

Here's the official Apple blurb:

The iPod Camera Connector's USB port can only be used to connect supported cameras and media readers. You cannot use it to connect other USB devices such as a mouse, keyboard, hub, or printer. iPod Camera Connector is a low power port and it cannot charge another iPod, iPod mini, or iPod shuffle. While an iPod photo with an attached iPod Camera Connector may recognize another iPod if you connect it, transferring photos from one iPod to another is not supported.

Google did find this thingy:

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Same as an iPod/iPod as far as I've been able to google.

Dunno. My _guess_ is that something like that under Andriod is much more likely since Android devices tend to be a _lot_ more expandable and less locked-down than iOS devices.

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Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Thousands of days of
                                  at               civilians ... have produced
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Reply to
Grant Edwards

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  • 2 mini-type USB socket, support for USB OTG, USB OTG transfer cable
Reply to
hamilton

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..

I wonder if they provide custom OS to by-pass Apple's restriction as well.

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When your Android-powered device is in USB host mode, it acts as the USB host, powers the bus, and enumerates connected USB devices. USB host mode is supported in Android 3.1 and higher.

Reply to
linnix

This might be a wild card Jim, but would this work:

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It has USB-OTG and Serial. You throw a cheap PS2 keyboard at it, and any old VGA monitor, or even a TV.

You may need to write the driver to do what you need, but hardware wise, it is all there.

And there are some cheaper versions that may suit, depending on your needs.

Cheers Don...

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Don McKenzie

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Reply to
Don McKenzie

I think they're actually USB OTG ports on the IPAD and IPOD. They connect to your PC as a slave, but can connect to your camera as a host to grab the photos from the camera.

IIRC, there's also a serial port on the IPAD connector, but Apple doesn't give developers the API. However, a company called RedPark makes a dock-connector-to-serial cable.

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Mark Borgerson

Reply to
Mark Borgerson

To much?:

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I dont care of other people. So whenever I like to do something this I buy an old palmpilot for 5Euro on ebay and use serial.

Olaf

Reply to
Olaf Kaluza

My new cellphone has HDMI! I dont understand the reason, it sounds very childish to connect a TV to a cellphone. But I learned that HDMI has I2C. So perhaps we have to think in this direction. :-)

Olaf

Reply to
Olaf Kaluza

$1000 picture frame. As long as you don't change it too often.

Might take several seconds to load a picture.

Reply to
linnix

Many obvious reasons for HDMI.

Modern cellphones/pads can record Full HD video (1920 x 1080). Why would you want to limit yourself to watching that video on a 800 x 480 4.3" screen?

If you are staying at a hotel, you can watch the video stored on your phone.

I bet there are many more good reasons.

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Best Regards
Ulf Samuelsson
Reply to
Ulf Samuelsson

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