OT: Laptop and cables, and MacPPP (was: Finally making use of PowerLisp despite several **horrible** bugs it has)

From: George Neuner <gneun...@xxxxxxxxxxx>
I haven't followed the previous thread(s) so please forgive and
ignore me if you've heard all this before.

Note, my current situation, including computer configuration/status:
<http://www.rawbw.com/~rem/NewPub/mySituation.html>

Seriously you can't afford a $20 cable? You can make one yourself for
about $10.

I have no money whatsoever, and I owe $60,000 to credit cards just
for basic living expenses before I got in subsidized low-income
housing. Now all my SSI income goes to basic living expenses and
making payments on credit cards, and unless somebody hires me to
get more income I won't finish paying off credit cards until I'm
234 years old, if I live that long, which I rather doubt. Would be
willing to loan me some money on the condition that I don't have to
start paying you back until after I finish paying off my
credit-card debt? ... Yeah, I didn't think so.

I can't afford to divert even $10 from credit-card payback to
buying a modem cable that I don't know will work because I don't
know if the serial port works at all and I don't know if the system
is wedged and that's why the plug-in internal modem doesn't work
and if I divert money to get a modem cable and it doesn't work I
have no idea how to diagnose why it doesn't work.

Laptop serial ports are Dsub-9M (aka DB-9M).

On the back of the laptop, there are several connectors:
- EIA female: 12+13 (icon looks like trapezoid with one part filled)
- EIA male: 4+5 (icon looks like |0|0|)
- DIN female: UL2 UR2 Bot2 Center1 Top1 (icon looks like mouse+keyboard)
- EIA female: 5+5+5 (icon looks like rectangle with bar at each end)
- Two rows of appx. 50 tiny closely-spaced pins per row, outer
grounding shield is shaped liked EIA even though inner connector
has same length in each row (no icon)
I assume the DIN connector is for external keyboard and/or mouse,
but I don't think my Macintosh desktop-bus kbd+mouse will fit
there, right? Just to be sure, I tried plugging mouse in there, but
although the outer DIN grounding shield is the same size, the plug
doesn't fit in because the pins don't match the holes.

So can you confirm that DIN socket is for IBM-PC-compatible
keyboard or mouse? What are each of the other sockets for?

If the EIA 12+13 socket is for serial I/O, do you know any program
on either MacOS 7.5.5 or Linux that will set that computer to act
like a DCE, so that if I could borrow a MacDin-to-EIAModem cable
(DTE/DCE) then the two computers could talk to each other that way,
and I wouldn't need a special DTE/DTE cable? I can't use my current
modem cable because it goes directly into the modem, no connector
at that end, just the DIN connector at the Mac end.

I seem to get the idea that you might be an expert at the names of
the various kinds of connectors, hence my questions above, and my
next questions:

The plug-in internal modem uses a connector of 2 closely-spaced
rows of appx. 34 tiny closely-spaced pins each. Do you know the
formal ID of that type of connector? Do all/most laptop computers
use the same type of connector for their plug-in internal modems?

The plug-in internal hard disk uses a connector with plastic outer
EIA-shape (but no protective ground metal), inside of which is a
rectangular void with two rows of appx. 20 pins each on opposite
sides of the void. Do you know the formal ID of that type of
connector? Do all/most laptop computers use the same type of
connector for their plug-in internal hard disks?

If you want to connect the computers together, you need to make
what's called a NULL-modem (aka DTE/DTE) cable - that's a cable
where the signals are swapped end to end. Connecting a computer to
a modem requires a normal (aka DTE/DCE) cable.

Yeah. I made one of those using EIA 12+13 at each end when I needed
to connect two terminals or two computers together back when I was
actively using my MOS 6502 and my Intel 8080, circa 1976-80, when I
lived in a large studio apartment in East Palo Alto that had room
for both of them. Both computers, and all cables, have been in
storage for years now. Pins 2,3 are the key pins, direct for
male-to-female connectors for DTE/DCE, crossed for male-to-male or
female-to-female connectors for DTE/DTE or DCE/DCE.

Linux needs to see DCD active but there is a software switch to
get around that if DCD isn't connected - see stty in the man pages.

Do you know enough about Linux to advise me how to test whether the
modem is actually broken or whether there's some software glitch in
Linux such as lock file that didn't get deleted, before I start
spending money I don't have to buy hardware that won't fit in this
smaller-than-motel-room room I have now? Do you know anyone located
in Sunnyvale (California) who knows enough about Linux to help me
diagnose the problem?

If you have System 7 or later, you've got PPP built in.

Except it doesn't work and I have no idea how to fix it. When I
start up MS-IE from a CD-ROM, even to view a local file on the
CD-ROM (documentation for the Data/FAX modem), it freezes the whole
machine, requiring cold restart. I suspect MS-IE checks PPP even
before checking whether it'll even need it. (It won't need PPP to
view files on the CD-ROM!!!) Is there anyone located in Sunnyvale
(California) who knows enough about PPP on MacOS 7.5.5 to diagose
why PPP hangs the system? Or do you know all the system files that
are needed for PPP so I can make sure all the files are on the hard
disk in the correct locations? Do you know of any diagnostic
problem that will first make sure all system files for PPP are
present, then check that each is valid, and finally diagnose why
PPP would hang the system if I started MS-IE again?

Dial-up surfing need not be excruciating. If you can do without
the graphics and animations you can use a text-mode browser.

I already do that by using VT100 emulator to dial into Unix shell,
then running lynx there. How would MacLynx direct from my Mac be
any better? On Unix I can run CMUCL which has a function for
running sub-processes under it, so I can run lynx under CMUCL to
allow me to write scripts that are responsive to what lynx sends
out and thereby modify the script per circumstances. I don't have
any version of Common Lisp on my Macintosh that has such a
facility.

Also just about the only reason I'd want to have direct PPP access
is so that I can view images from home without needing to first go
to a public lab to edit them down to cellphone size, and so that I
can use sites that require JavaScript. But MacLynx doesn't support
either images or JavaScript, right?

For Linux there are current versions of Lynx.

My laptop already has a regular Web browser (some really old
version of Netscape Navigator) which seems to work fine with local
Web pages on the laptop. So if I got PPP service on my laptop (if I
got the modem working again), why would I want to use Lynx?

Are you sure the laptop serial port works?

I have no idea how to test to find out if it does.

If you have a NULL-modem cable, you can test it with the Mac,
just fire up the comm software on both sides, select no handshaking
or software handshaking and see if you can type both ways. If that
works,

Then I know all the components are working. But if it doesn't work,
I have no way to diagnose what's wrong:
- Hardware for serial port on laptop bad.
- Software for serial port on laptop wedged, possibly the same
software wedge that makes the plug-in internal modem not work.
- I screwed up making the modem cable.
I can't afford to divert money from credit-card repayments to buy
something that might not work and I have no way to diagnose why it
doesn't work hence no way to get my money back if the cable was at
fault.

If the modem works with the Mac then the problem is with the laptop:
in the cable, the serial port, or the software configuration.

Yeah, and I have no way to diagnose which is the problem.

I wish there was somebody in the local area who had a laptop with a
plug-in internal modem who would swap modems with me temporarily to
diagnose whether it's the modem itself or the system/software
that's bad.
- If my modem works on their computer, then it's my software that's
wedged, or some hardware other than the modem itself that's broken,
such as a loose ribbon cable. A low-level hardware diagnostic
should be able to verify that the modem works when not going
through the MiniCom program, or tell what cable is loose.
- If their modem works on my computer, then it's my modem that's
broken, and then I might be willing to spend an hour each way
taking public transit to Fry's Electronics to get a new modem
using money I don't have and can't afford to spend.

I wish there was a cheap/free working laptop with working modem,
that took the same kind of plug-in internal hard disk that mine
uses, so that I could just transfer the hard disk to the new laptop
whenever I wanted to upload/download files to/from that hard disk.
With two laptops, I could do work myself on one while using the
other for tutoring another person, or tutor two students at the
same time, and swap hard disks whenever I needed to upload/download
to/from the other hard disk. If the new laptop has a USB port, then
I could copy large amounts of software from one hard disk to the
other via a USB flash drive as temporary storage place. Otherwise
if it has a working diskette drive, then I could copy medium
amounts of software from one hard disk to another using diskettes
as temporary storage places.
.

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