[WP-34S] Cable and flashing options for Mac users

[John Galt]

Using a loopback test and a terminal emulator (Minicom) I verified the Prolific cable is working while running in Linux.

To illustrate, Minicom echoes the characters if Tx and Rx are connected together:

Welcome to minicom 2.7

OPTIONS: I18n
Compiled on Jan 1 2014, 17:13:19.
Port /dev/ttyUSB0, 17:49:28

Press CTRL-A Z for help on special keys

ASDFasdf <--- those are echoed if Tx and Rx are connected, and not if they are not.

There is still no selection available in the dropdown menu next to MySamBa's "connect to" field. However, other interesting things are happening:

- If I enter nonsense characters or /var/ttyUSB0 in MySamBa's "connect to" field, and then click Send File, a dialog box with title "Error" and text "Error, could not connect to calculator" will appear.

- If I enter com1 in the "connect to" field and click Send File, a different "Error" dialog box appears. This one says "Unable to connect".

- If I leave Minicom open and running without connecting anything to the calculator, a few random garbage characters will also appear when I do this.

So, something is happening... but further progress continues to be elusive.

One more thing: Minicom does not recognize com1 if I attempt to configure it using that port. Only /var/ttyUSB0 seems to work. Specifying com1 results in minicom: cannot open com1: No such file or directory

Question: What is the significance in the difference between the two messages that appear in the "Error" dialog boxes?