[sterum]

Hello there,

My question is if the serial port in Magic DOSBox is working as in the “original” dosbox version.

I have a Program (Simatic Step5 if this is known by anyone) that connects to a PLC over the serial port COM1. I have a USB/Serial Adapter and the adapter is attached as /dev/ttyUSB0 on my ASUS Transformer TF300T Tablet.
In Expert Settings (dosbox.conf) i have enabled the serialport1 as followed:

[serial]
serial1=directserial realport:ttyUSB0

But now when running the program i can’t connect to the PLC.

When i run dosbox with the program on my FreeBSD machine i can connect to the PLC and all is working fine. On a Linux System there are also no problems, only Magic DOSBox version doesn’t work as it should.

The USB/Serial Adapter works well on my android tablet because i can connect my digital multimeter to it an i get output from it. And of course the permissions are set to 666 on /dev/ttyUSB0

So the question is, are there any differences between the original dosbox ant the dosbox version that is used in Magic DOSBox. Is the serial port function disabled in Magic DOSBox and can it then perhaps be enabled?

[Al ex]

Hi, and welcome! ?
Interesting use case you got there. Unfortunately, I can’t answer your question myself, but I’ll pass it on to Tony, the Magic Dosbox dev. Stay tuned!

[admin]

Hi,

no, noting was cut of serial port features. However, you are on arm, not on x86, who knows. Serial port was tested and worked with various apps. But you know, android is completely different system and each if it’s versions may work differently. For example, internet connection requires special internet permissions. They should be granted automatically on installation. Did you try paste whole desktop dosbox config in expert settings? Maybe there is something what mdosbox disables by default like pcspeaker

[sterum]

I didn’t have tried with the desktop config but i will try tomorrow.
However is there a way to get some debug output from Magic DOSBox, like on the desktop when i start dosbox from the console?

And yes, the usecase is a bit unusual 🙂
But it would be really cool when i can connect a android device to a 30 years old Siemens CPU.

[Al ex]

There is an “Enable debug” option in Global settings, but I’m not sure if and where debug data is stored. But you can give it a try, and look in the .MagicBox or /Android/data/bruenor.magicbox folders.

Concerning old stuff on modern phones, this one here is also quite neat. ?

[sterum]

So, now i have tried with the dosbox config from the desktop but with no success. I have also tried to enable the svn version but with no success too.
Enabling the debug option gives me no output. I looked in .MagicBox in Android/data/bruenor.magicbox.free (yes, i’m using the free version for now) and also in /data/data/bruenor.magicbox.free including all subdirectorys. But i can’t find any debug relevant files.
Can someone explain what the debug option should do.

[admin]

And which version do you use on desktop? Official 0.74, svn-3 or some other, modified? You are on windows?

[sterum]

No, i’m on FreeBSD. Im using the recent package from the FreeBSD ports collection, which uses the official dosbox-0.74.3.tar.gz.

[admin]

And is there way to try official 0.74 or svn-2. We are not on v3. Best is to use both

Btw what is the value of realport:ttyUSB0? On android I think are ports 2000 and below reserved. I am not sure how it will work if port falls in this range

Maybe you can try yet another dosbox port called ldosbox from store

[admin]

Can you please send me email?

[sterum]

Sorry for the late answer, but i had not much time the last few days.

I have compiled dosbox-0.74.tar.gz from source but when i run it i get a segfault, so i can not test this.
I also tried Idosbox but this app quits immediately after it starts, so i can’t test this too.

And what do you mean with port number 2000? I thought port numbers are for IP communication.

[sterum]

Where can i get the sourcecode. I would like to look into it.
Is there a git repo available.

[Droggelbecher]

Hello there!

Did anybody found a solution meanwhile? I have exactly the same problem as sterum right now.
I also got a TTY-USB-cable. The connection works perfectly via DosBox on the computer. However, it doesn´t work with the Magic DosBox on the Android phone.

[Author]

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