Macintosh SE/30 controlling LED using Arduino via serial

[ande765a]

Hi everybody!
 
Just quickly wanted to share a little hack-or-something I did today. I connected the SE/30 to my Arduino Uno via serial which was running an interpreter I wrote to turn pins on and off. Pretty cool

Here's a video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6JPoB0M4zM&feature=youtu.be

 

[bigmessowires]

Nice! Good ol' serial port, still so useful after 25 years. 

Hook it up to an XBee and you can control other devices wirelessly from your SE/30. Home automation!

 

[Elfen]

How you did it? What software you used? What were the settings to connect to the Arduino? Input information! Knowledge is power!

I know that the Arduinos use USB, so how was that hooked up to the SE/30 Serial Port? Secondly, I a couple of Arduino Mini's (Chinese clones) that does not have USB but they do have a 6 prong serial port (2 prongs is for voltage to turn it on). I would like to get these going on a Mac 68K/PPC.

 

[olePigeon]

Step 2:  Control your Christmas Lights.

 

[bigmessowires]

How you did it? What software you used? What were the settings to connect to the Arduino? Input information! Knowledge is power!

I know that the Arduinos use USB, so how was that hooked up to the SE/30 Serial Port? Secondly, I a couple of Arduino Mini's (Chinese clones) that does not have USB but they do have a 6 prong serial port (2 prongs is for voltage to turn it on). I would like to get these going on a Mac 68K/PPC.

I don't have any details on ande765a's project, but all Arduinos have built-in serial hardware, even though they don't physically have a serial port. So it's probably just hooking up a few wires between the SE/30 serial connector and the corresponding pins on the Arduino.

 

[Elfen]

Thanks, BMoW.

This is simillar to the one I got; the two end signals are different, but Tx, Rx, VCC and GND are on the same place on the header - easily to hook up to a serial port. But what's the baud rate, software used to connect, and other fine details. And I got it from ebay for $2 - with free shipping! (OK, I had to solder the headers in but that's minor). Radio Shack sells these for $45? Guess who I'm ordering from!) Plus the other Tx and Rx on the other header are for a second serial port on this model similar to the Arduino Mega and Leonardo with 2 serial ports. (I did not test out the 2nd serial port); the one on the end header usually goes to a USB to TTL-serial adapter. All this on a tiny package of 1.5in X .75in, it's not bad. The VCC needs to be regulated 5V though it can run at 3.3V since it does not have a regulated power supply area. But for $1, Ebay has a tiny (.75in X .25in) voltage regulation board - up to 12v goes in, regulated 5v goes out.
It would be nice to get an older Mac to compile and program the Arduino, not just send commands to it though this is a great start.

 

[bigmessowires]

You set the baud rate, etc in your Mac (or Windows) terminal program, and also in the Arduino software you write. They have to match. I think the Arduino serial library uses 9600 8N1 as the default. The Arduino IDE has a very simple built-in serial terminal that you can use to see debug text coming back from the board. There are also a couple of serial port example programs that come with the IDE. On the Mac/PC, you should also be able to use something like Hyperterm or Tera Term or the classic Z-Term on the Mac.

 

[Elfen]

*Nods* Though much of this knowledge is common sense, common sense is lacking these days. Thanks for the input. I'll post up my findings when I get a change.

But first, at least with these Chinese Clones, I find that the ground (GND) next to the Voltage Input (VCC) on the communications header (the 6 pins on the end of the Mini Pro) is not connected to the Ground (GND) on the other two headers. The only thing I can figure from this that this second GND is a signal ground and not a voltage ground. In my experience I have only seen signal grounds separate from voltage grounds in audio and 2-way radio systems.

 

[ande765a]

How you did it? What software you used? What were the settings to connect to the Arduino? Input information! Knowledge is power!

I know that the Arduinos use USB, so how was that hooked up to the SE/30 Serial Port? Secondly, I a couple of Arduino Mini's (Chinese clones) that does not have USB but they do have a 6 prong serial port (2 prongs is for voltage to turn it on). I would like to get these going on a Mac 68K/PPC.

"How you did it?"

I just connected the TX, RX and ground pins from the Macintosh printercable to the arduino with a max232 chip in between to do the ttl <-> rs232 conversation. But with TX going to RX and RX going to TX. The arduino was just running a program I wrote to interpret commands from the serial connection to switch pins on and off. I can upload the source on github if you want, but the code is really not something to brag about. 

"What software you used?"

On the Macintosh I used ZTerm to connect to the serial interface with baudrate 9600 as bigmessowires suggested.

I think it would be cool being able to actually program the arduino from the macintosh, but would require building the avr-gcc compiler for the macintosh

 

[Elfen]

I think it would be cool being able to actually program the arduino from the macintosh, but would require building the avr-gcc compiler for the macintosh

Too bad; though it might be possible to throw the library into another gcc compiler for the mac that is out there. But that might be too much work.

I would like to see that program. If it's less than 25 lines of code I'm sure you can post it up here. If its more than 25 lines, then Git Hub is the way to go. And be proud, to you your code may not be much but to others it could answer some questions they have been seeking long ago. Yes, I could write one myself but why reinvent the wheel?

Thanks for the information!!

 

[ande765a]

Here you go: https://github.com/ande765a/CommandSystem/tree/master

 

[techknight]

This is very similar to something I did a few years ago. I built a spectrum analyser with my SE/30. Basically, wrote a program to read serial data inputted from the atmel processor, the atmel processor was responsible for sampling the MSGEQ7 IC, and sending it to the Mac. 

It worked, but was slighly slow update/refresh on the mac side. To be expected because the app was written in realbasic. RB apps wont run on the 68000 because it requires CFM68K which is 32-bit. 

 

[Elfen]

Here you go: https://github.com/ande765a/CommandSystem/tree/master

Got it, thanks!