Psion 3a Service Manual
Psion Series 3a Manufacturer Type Retail availability 1993 Media Psion Solid State Disks @ 7.68 MHz Display 480 × 160, 13.1 cm (5.16 in) Input QWERTY keyboard microphone stylus Camera N/A Touchpad N/A Connectivity, 19200 Power 2 × The Psion Series 3 range of were made. The four main variants are the Psion Series 3 (1991), the Psion Series 3a (1993), the Psion Series 3c (1996), and the Psion Series 3mx (1998), all sized 165 × 85 × 22 mm. In addition, a Psion Series 3a variant with factory installed software for the Russian language was called a Psion Series 3aR, and sold a rebadged version of the Psion Series 3 and 3a marketed as the Acorn Pocket Book and Acorn Pocket Book II.
Ebook Psion 3a Manual currently available at www.psychd.co for review only, if. Manual, 2004 International 4300 Service Manual, Learnerships At Bokoni. Psion 3a Service Manual. Visiting a brick and mortar library is no longer necessary if you need a novel to read during your daily commute, a short stories. This manual and the programs referred to herein are copyrighted works of Psion PLC. Psion and the Psion logo are registered trademarks, and Psion Series 3a. Series 3, SSD and Solid. Total car bill=fuel+repair+loan. The result (100).
The Psion Series 3 range is regarded by writer as an unsurpassed PDA because of its long battery life (20 to 35 hours), its stable and versatile, and its durable. About 1.5 million Psion 3s were made. The Psion Series 3 models were a major advance on the. They had an original way of managing files: the available program icons are shown in a horizontal line and the associated files drop down beneath them. Manufacture of Psion 3s was discontinued in 1998 shortly after the launch of the (a Psion Series 4 does not exist, due to Psion's concern of in their Asian markets) and the. Psion's industrial hardware division continue to produce handhelds running the same 16-bit operating system, some 17 years after its introduction on the Psion MC range of laptops and 5 years after Psion Computer's final 32-bit EPOC PDA was released.
All the Series 3 variants were powered by two AA battery cells which are easily obtainable, rather than having a specially shaped proprietary battery which might be difficult to replace. They all have an internal backup battery in the form of an easily changed small button cell, which enables the main AA batteries to be changed without losing any of the data files. In addition they all have a DC input socket for optional external power-supply via a mains transformer. The Series 3's innovative clamshell design did have some problems: breakages of any of the four hinges; loss of function in the button bar between the two halves of the clam; and deterioration of the cable linking the keyboard half to the screen, leading to a serious display problem with the appearance of vertical lines. Psion Series 3s have room for two flash-memory cards, which enabled backup of data.
Psion, Acorn and third party software was available loaded onto such memory cards which were available as separate packs. The Series 3 featured a tone dialing feature using a combination of its built-in loudspeaker and dedicated software for generating tones suitable for telephone systems. It could be used to dial a telephone number by holding the device to the mouthpiece of a tone dialing telephone.
The tone dialing feature was integrated into the Psion's Agenda, Contacts and Data applications. One unique feature of the Psion Series 3 software package was a built-in programming language, OPL (Organiser/), which enabled users to create their own applications that ran and looked just as system programs. This, along with the rise in popularity of forums such as and, led to a significant scene, (still) archived by and the 3-Lib shareware library, started in 1994. This Psion shareware scene was mirrored a few years later by the shareware scene and both were forerunners of the 'app'-centric mobile world that we have today. The project has produced a small subset of that runs on the Series 3a. Pocket Book Essentially a rebadged OEM version of the Series 3 with slightly different on-board software, the Acorn Pocket Book was marketed by as an inexpensive computer for schoolchildren, rather than as an executive tool. The hardware was the same as the Series 3, but the integrated applications were different; for instance, the Pocket Book omitted the Agenda diary application, which became an optional install from floppy diskette.
Other programs were renamed: 'System' became 'Desktop', 'Word' became 'Write', 'Sheet' became 'Abacus' and 'Data' became 'Cards'. Psion 3a The most obvious upgrade to the Psion 3a is a larger screen, now 480 x 160.
The Series 3a has a NEC V30H CPU (running at 7.68 MHz), a microphone for voice recording, an I/O port (for, printing and PC ), and 256 kB, 512 kB, 1 MB or 2 MB of. The backup battery for the Series 3a is a CR1620.
The Psion Series 3a range was revised in 1995 to include models with 1 MB or 2 MB of RAM and additional software was factory preloaded into the ROM. This included a spell checker and thesaurus, Comms software, games and more, though all of these had been available previously as optional extras (or in the case of the Comms software, as a program loaded from the ROM of the 3Link serial connector) for earlier models. Acorn Pocket Book II As a successor to its slightly-modified Pocket Book, Acorn also produced a rebadged 3a named the Pocket Book II. This added back some of the applications omitted from the original Pocket Book, so was closer in specification to the standard Psion model. For instance, Psion's 'Agenda' application was replaced, although renamed 'Schedule', and a new Plotter application (graph-plotting software) was added. The Pocket Book II came in either 256 KB, 512 KB or 1 MB variants. Psion Series 3aR There was also a modification of the Series 3a for market named Psion Series 3aR, which had software factory installed directly in the ROM for the.
All the other Series 3 models had software for the English language factory installed and localization required installation of localization software, which was bundled in the box with the Psion palmtop. Psion Series 3c closed. Note the on the left part of device The Psion Series 3c was the next variant after the Psion Series 3a. (A Psion Series 3b does not exist). It has a slightly different external appearance to the earlier variants because a redesigned badge is placed centrally on the lid, the lid has fewer undulations, and a is visible.
The plastic case is painted matte dark grey. The backup battery for the Series 3c is a CR1620. The Series 3c, and the later 3mx, have an Easter Egg. In the System Screen, if you display the 'About' screen, then type:!Mrs T Bogan! The English anthem 'Jerusalem' is played, followed by a list of credits.
(It is a one-shot affair; if you mis-type, you need to kill/restart the System Screen with Ctrl+Psion+Shift+K before you can retry.). Psion 3mx The Psion Series 3mx was the last upgrade in the popular 16-bit (SIBO) Series 3 line. Announced in July 1998, after the release of the 32-bit (EPOC), the 3mx is essentially an upgraded Series 3c. The 3mx comes in two models: 1 MB and 2 MB. The Psion Series 3mx and Series 3c have a similar overall external appearance, except the 3mx sports a matte silver metallic paint covering, rather than the dark grey finish of the 3c. The Series 3mx has a faster processor: a 16 bit NEC V30MX (80C86 compatible) running at 27.684 MHz, and a faster RS232c connection, which was boosted to 115 kbit/s. For compatibility with legacy software the processor speed can be reduced by pressing Ctrl + CapsLock.
All models of the Series 3mx came with a backlit screen, also some 3cs (mainly for the USA market) had backlit screens. The screen backlight can be switched on and off by pressing the space bar whilst the special function key is pressed. The Series 3mx takes a CR2025 backup battery which is larger than the CR1620 that is used for the previous series 3 Psion models. Like many other Series 3 models, the 3mx uses an infrared port which can be used to transfer data between two devices. The capability to browse the on the device was also available through, although it was only available for use with an external modem. Due to the black and white screen, this was often not the most practical way of browsing the web.
Accessories Software packs. RAM & Flash: both sides shown The older RAM needed a button cell to keep the data stable in the memory.
One button cell fitted into each module. The later memory modules, flash I and flash II, did not need a battery and were cheaper for each capacity (both versions continued being manufactured). The flash modules did have the limitation of needing to be re-formatted entirely to reclaim space from deleted or modified files; old versions of files which were deleted or modified continued to take up space until the module was formatted.
This made the RAM modules more desirable for use where the data stored was likely to be changed frequently, as every change with a flash module meant writing a new version of the file into the remaining space. (, 15 September 2009). I can personally verify this durability.
I'm still using the same Psion 3mx I bought in 1998, and have used almost daily since. (Roy K Gillard ) Added August 2015.
Manual Car Service Manuals
Retrieved 2007-08-08. 15 July 2011 at the. Retrieved on 2013-12-08. Acorn.chriswhy.co.uk (2008-01-16). Retrieved on 2013-12-08. Archived from on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-01-08.
(Press release). 2 November 1998. Archived from on 20 February 1999. Retrieved 16 April 2011. External links. Wikimedia Commons has media related to.
My experiences with the psion 3a This page originates from and is mirrored. Contents.
(explicit photographs!). Psion Surgery Contents:. Photos taken with a For a similar site, see, and another with (link now expired).
(see part 3 of the FAQ at, local copy ( 168 K): The battery connector released from its retaining tab, but not disconnected from the body. ( 176 K): After removal of the keyboard cover. (I did this by lifting out the front, next to the space bar, first, then easing the back out.) ( 192 K): The back of the keyboard cover is held down by a total of six tabs; the edge ones point backwards and the centre ones hook downwards. This is why `considerable force' is needed at this point.
( 256 K): WARNING: when lifting up the keyboard cover, ONLY insert your tools in the dead centre, where there is a dimple in the circuit board. Preferably use a blunter plastic instrument. Notice I used a metal screwdriver, and at the tricky moment when lifting the keyboard cover's two prongs out, I scratched the circuit board underneath. No real damage done, but if I had been clumsier, it could have been terminal, I guess. ( 168 K): After lifting the main circuit board.
Note the blue connector strip which is hanging loose. Note also the main top to bottom connectors in white. The blue connector should go back in the centre white connector at the bottom front.
( 184 K): another view ( 184 K): This blue connector is not home yet. ( 176 K): Left Hinge Surgery ( 184 K): This is what your psion looks like when you open it when your left hinge is broken.
( 184 K): Another View of broken-hinged psion when psion is open. ( 192 K): Step one: battery compartment removed. ( 168 K): The battery connector has been removed; here is a hinge and spring.
( 168 K): Here I am twisting the button bar so you can see the stump of the hinge. ( 160 K): I made the new hinge out of a paper clip. I bent it double to give it some thickness, then put a right angle in it. Tony Humphreys said I created the new hinge pin from a small round headed nail. I sawed it to a stump of the right size and filed the head to a D. Then I pushed it through the drilled hole and superglued it into place. The D shape allowed the head to fit snugly among the various mouldings This was one of the few occasions I have succeeded with superglue!
Though if the superglue does give way then the spring holds the nail head in place anyway. ( 168 K): Hinge trimmed and held in place ( 176 K): Fixing the display cable to get rid of the vertical lines (jail bars) 99/11/27, my psion 3a developed vertical lines on the screen. This is apparently a well-known problem, caused by the cable to the screen having internal cracks in its copper or bad solder at its end in side the screen. I read dejanews and found a few fixes including using car-windscreen-repair-gloop for restoring the defroster wires when they break. Then I tried a simpler hack, which worked for my jail bars: I removed the battery case (4 screws), and half-opened the psion. (Held it open with tape from jaw to jaw.) In this position, you can get at both sides of the cable, and there is just enough space to fit a piece of tape 5mm wide through. I reckoned the problem was associated with bending and straightening of the cable at the place where it disappeared into the screen.
So I taped several pieces of old plastic card (credit card) to the cable there, on both sides of the cable, to try to stiffen it and discourage it from bending. The straight state appeared to be the reliable jail-bar-free state, as tugging on the cable improved things on the screen.
The bars still come and go, but the problem is much reduced, and I plan to retire the psion into a home-vt100-terminal role. Alternative solutions: A good squirt of WD-40. (oil) Open the cover about 25% and squirt wd-40 in onto the ribbon cable (not too much). Remove batteries from compartment and squirt ribbon cable from rear. The wd-40 allows the copper contacts to work again.
Fixes 90% of the Jail-Bar problems. (Tried it on two different Psions, and worked well with both). Doesn't work for ever and wd-40 may need to be re-applied a month or so later, but worth a try. Laurie Williams I sent it to Pinnock Organiser Services who did a smashing repair job, and I actually got back a better functioning machine than the one I sent away! They even mended the squeaky hinge! For the price of the repair, you get a full (very full!) service of the machine and some new batteries.
Invaulable repair, and turned round in about five days (from post to receipt!) Can't recommend it enough! Cost about 60ukp as I remember. 0181 677 9246 Address for website is (was co.uk) - Every few days, someone says: I turned my Psion 3a on this morning to discover that it won't respond to pressing any of the 'System', 'Data'.
Aghast, I did a soft reset to no effect. Anyone had this happen to their Psion? Suggestions either as a self fix or (horrors) who I could send away to be fixed cheaply and quickly? Also, does anyone know in the meantime if there is any other way to skip back to the System screen when in an application, other than the 'System' button? This happened to me after 14 months' careful use of my psion 3a. I never dropped it on the floor or got it wet. I am very upset about this, as I expected my psion to last for years, and psion uk seem unwilling to fix the problem without a huge (75 pound) charge.
I think this is outrageous, as the product is clearly defective if it stops working after 14 months careful use. There are and. The (the relevant bit is copied contains a hardware fix recipe involving skillful use of a screwdriver (by Kevin Reilly).
You could also send the Psion off to a repair company - Pinnock Organiser Services (0181 677 9246) who are supposedly better, cheaper and quicker than Psion. Here are the. Here are the software fixes. First, some fixes which are innate in the psion itself:.
For Series 3a owners, several programs are available to help you switch back to the System screen. The worst case is if you're stuck in the Time app since you cannot close it anymore. It has been found out by a 2 year old (sic!) that you can 'emulate' the Sheet button with the key combination of 'up cursor, down cursor and Esc'. Yes, it seems strange but it works! This will either put you into an open Sheet file or bring you to the Sheet icon on the System screen. To go directly to the Sheet icon each time, press the Psion key at the same time as the above combination. Another such key combination has been reported by Timothy Giles: 'up cursor, p key and Esc' will emulate the Calc button.
Apparently, there is a pattern and this key sequence was found by studying the keyboard values of keys. points to TOSHELL.OPO (just 192 bytes in size).
'This handy little program simply allows you to hit CTRL-Z to perform exactly the same function as the System button'. Pfund's DPSwitch, found at, allows you to very quickly jump back to any open task AND the system screen of course!
(Useful, but superceded by kbdmap and macsys below). uses to remap the toolbar. This is perhaps the best solution of all.
Control-Shift- act as application buttons. Cost is 40DM. (macro system) is another very nice software package for creating keyboard shortcuts for arbitrary operations. The overhead is 34K disk space plus 23K to run. The macros themselves generally take much less than 1K of disk space, and use memory only when actually running - much better than separate apps to implement task managers, etc. More about psion I called psion UK tech support on 0990 143 061. It took.ages.
to get through their queue. They sent me to 0181 575 9919 (why is this number not on the psion web page?). Another huge phone queue. (Their address is Psion UK service centre. Unit 6 Derby Rd. Metropolitan Centre, Greenford, Middlesex.
UB6 8UJ.) The OUTRAGEOUS bastards say that there will be a 75 pound charge for repair. I am unlikely ever to buy another psion.
I have encouraged several friends to buy them, but if they go wrong after less than two years, and psion won't admit that this is unsatisfactory, I can't recommend them any more. I asked to speak to the director. They pointed me to (name deleted) 0181 839 1700.
I couldn't get through to him. I gave up, because feeling angry with psion is a poor use of energy. All the same, here is what the newsgroup said: David MacKay writes: I think that anyone who sells a personal digital assistant has a legal obligation to produce something that lasts longer than 14 months (irrespective of what warranty they give). They shouldn't be able to market stuff that breaks down so soon and get away with it.
In the UK, any warranty is subservient to the Sales and Supply of Goods Act, 1994, which says: 'All goods must be of satisfactory quality. Satisfactory means goods must be safe, durable and free from minor defects.'
If quoting this at them doesn't work, and you feel you have a sufficiently strong case, you could consider taking them to Small Claims Court. Can anyone advise on the legal situation? Phone your local Trading Standards Officer for advice, usually reachable through your local council. The psion 3a has at least four hinges. Two visible ones just beyond either end of the button bar, which seem to have a metal rod down the centre, and two hidden between the battery compartment and the button bar; these are simple plastic nipples which go into plastic holes. I have owned several psions and have seen two hinge failures. (May 2000: Now I have seen all four!
Right and Left fixes are identical.) All hinge breakages are easy to fix. Left hidden hinge nipple breaks off. This makes the back side of the psion look crooked hile opening, and leaves the button bar flexing out. To fix this broken hidden hinge, see the gory photo sequence mentioned. Right visible hinge breaks 2mm above the hinge proper; the 8mm-wide neck connecting the hinge to the lid shears off. This is presumably caused by over-opening of the lid which bends the metal pin in the hinge and puts torque on the 8mm-wide neck.
I know two fixes for this right-hinge problem. I used epoxy adhesive and a thin piece of steel to glue the broken off piece back in place. The second time a visible-hinge broke, I just used a blob of epoxy (araldite) without steel. In both cases the epoxy is working fine. Geoffrey Mathers used paperclips, solder and pins:. From tonyrosser@thefreeinternet.co.uk Wed Jul 11 09: From: 'Tony Rosser' Battery Connector problem, where wires break at 2 pin plug. With a steady hand, small soldering iron, small cutters and pliers and componenets from RS Components I managed to renew the battery wires and 2 pin connector.
2 Way Housing RS 279-9156 Crimp Lead RS 279-9516 - December 26 2011 The housing RS 279-9156 doesn't fit perfectly, but good enough. Only the wire RS 279-9516 is too short as a replacement for the long one, so I replaced it with RS 279-9443 that has double the length and even is cheaper. As they come in packs of 10 and only to commercial customers, I sell my surplus at cost for 4,12 €/assembly. Just send this amount via PayPal to sven@killig.de to get one. I bought a psion 3a in April 96 having heard that they can be happily connected to Sun workstations. This requires. A 3-link.
A 3-link to workstation connection. Software All of these steps have proved more troublesome than expected. Getting a 3-link without having to buy PC or Mac software too seems to be impossible. I wanted to do this, as, on environmental principle, I don't want to buy stuff (packaging, manuals, floppies) that I have no use for, and I don't like to be ripped off. But psion customer service seem adamantly opposed to any personal service of this sort. When I said I had bought a Psion and wanted to connect it to my unix machine, the lady said that they only advertised the Psion as being connectable to PCs and Macs, so I couldn't expect them to cooperate.
I was not expecting such hostility to a potential market of unconventional users. Once you have a 3-link (I borrowed one) you need a 9 pin to 25 pin adaptor, male to male. This is impossible to buy from any ordinary computer hardware supplier; they only make 9 pin.female. to 25 pin male adaptors.
After searching through several catalogues I did find a 9 to 25 male to male cable, and I called them up, but it turned out to be a misprint! So the easiest thing to do is to get the 9 pin.female.
to 25 pin male adaptor and add to its female end a 9 pin male to 9 pin male gender convertor. These parts can be obtained very cheap from Hills components (44) part numbers 26-3063 and 15-3572.
The prices are more than 3 times cheaper than other places, so you won't mind having to buy the parts in threes. 9-25way adaptors can also be obtained from Clove Technologies at a greater price. Alternatively you could make your own adaptor. I believe the correct wirings are: nine(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) 25(8,3,2,20,7,6,4,5,22). Having the thing made professionally by BlackBox would have cost 30 pounds including delivery.
Final alternative: Apparently you can get a psion 25 pin connector that plugs into the 3-link; but none of the psion vendors ever had such a thing in stock when I called them. I called about four places. I have got the p3nfsd software.
When searching for it, you need to know that the package is called p3nfs.pl (not p3nfsd). The latest version of p3nfs is here:. (Thanks to rfkoenig@immd4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de for bringing me up to date.) Now it is called p3nfs51.tgz or p3nfs-5.1a.tar.gz (see also This package has a lot more in it than the version 10 which I installed. However, all that follows in this section refers to version 10, and having installed the new version I don't find the old one is now inadequate for my purposes. (But see.) I got a friendly sysadmin to get and apply the patches which the Sunos kernel apparently needs. Big problem All the software packages require that there be an executable program sitting on your psion.
How are you supposed to get it there? (Assuming you don't have PCs or Macs, which I don't.) I decided the only thing to do was to type in the whole damn nfs program (about 200 lines).
(I am amazed at myself!) In fact Tim tells me I could have used the drive C in the psi-link as follows: run a comms program `in the cable' to transfer files (in fact the program is already present in the 3a's ROM, and replaces the software in the cable). The workstation would have had to be told to use the relevant protocol. We're not sure how to get a unix machine to do this, but maybe kermit would do the trick. Or even cat file /tty/deva might have worked.
If there are simple ways to transfer files between psions and unix machines, why does the FAQ not mention them? It would have saved a lot of effort. Can be found below.
Once all these things were done, I succeeded! I immediately transferred the real nfsc.opl over and started using it, instead of my bug-filled copy. I copied the real nfsc.opl over again, and checked that it had copied OK. I am now a happy camper - but pissed off with psion that they force me to buy some PC software to get my own 3-link. What is a PC? One thing I was not clear on was what should happen when p3nfs was working correctly.
So here is a little description of what happens. Exit all applications (not essential).
Run the Nfsc program on the psion. A welcome message comes up on the psion.
On the workstation, type p3nfsd -u mackay -tty /dev/ttyb -oldnfsc. If all is well, you'll get p3nfsd: version 2.0 beta, pl10, using /dev/ttyb (19200), mounting on /psion/mnt p3nfsd: to stop the server do 'ls /psion/mnt/exit'. (pid 613) and a new prompt. If something is up, you won't get a new prompt, you'll get error messages instead. At this point ' appears on the psion. You can now access the psion as if it is a hard drive mounted at /psion/m; for example:. 69:bee:/home/mackay/reviews ls /psion/m agn dat opl spr wdr wrd app opd opo sun.opl wld wve 71:bee:/home/mackay/reviews cd /psion/m /psion/mnt/loc::m: agn/ dat/ opl/ spr/ wdr/ wrd/ app/ opd/ opo/ sun.opl wld/ wve/ 72:bee:/psion/m cd wrd /psion/mnt/loc::m:/wrd biocom.wrd dublin.wrd life.wrd txt/ coderesu.wrd how2talk.wrd sb1.wrd word.wrd dublin.txt htm/ tex/ 73:bee:/psion/m/wrd tar cvf /backup.tar.
3a Service Center
(this backs up everything in the psion's wrd directory. Note that there is nothing to be done on the psion except watch confirmatory character strings pop up on the screen. If the psion times out (switches off), you will get Stale NFS file handle on the unix machine when you try to do stuff. But when you switch it on again all is well. Sometimes you will get messages like NFS server psion not responding still trying NFS server psion ok which are cute. What a cool system!. To exit, you need to make sure that no users are using the mounted drive.
(i.e., cd ); and then type ls /psion/mnt/exit on the workstation. This gives the response ls: /psion/mnt/exit: File exists which means you have succeeded. You'll also get a p3nfsd: exiting. Psion-Esc gets you out of the opl program on the psion. Sometimes I find I don't have to exit either program. I find I can just detach the psion and then plug it in again later on and the connection works fine. This is a big plus.
But it doesn't always work. Be careful not to type ls /psion/mnt/exit when p3nfsd is not running. This can turn into a zombie process. Also avoid changing directory into the psion and then trying to kill the daemon! How I tried to do it Here I report my experiences with raw file transfer.
P3nfsd should not be running when you do the following. Plug 3link into psion and into serial port of unix box. On the psion system screen select install and change to drive C, and install comms. Enter commsC. Use menu to select Transfer-Receive. Give a file name.
On the unix machine, type cat file /dev/ttyb where file is the file to be transferred, and ttyb is the port you have plugged el gizmo into. Outcome: I found that I transferred a file but most of its characters were garbled, or maybe 50%, apparently with one bit being changed. Could try changing protocol. Could try capture instead of receive. Tried Menu-Capture, followed by cat file /dev/ttyb followed by Menu-Capture-off. Don't think this had the desired effect.
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The received file is a pile of weird characters. Tried changing the protocol from ascii to xmodem crc. This time nothing seemed to get across at all. Conclusion: it is possible to get.some. bits across using the comms package and cat /dev/ttyb, but I didn't find the right protocol yet. (And I've tried almost every protocol combination I could think of.) Please mail me a clear description of how to do it, if you know how, and I'll put it here.
'OK this is what I did to get the OPL program down to my Psion and compiled for the NFS program. 'I used the terminal program that comes with the comms link to login in to my UNIX machine. I changed directory to where I put the source code for the Psion part of the NFS stuff. Then I turned on 'logging' (Sorry I can't tell you the exact menu pick as I do not have my serial link with me today) this will write to a file everything that is displayed on the screen.
Then I just did 'cat filename' on the source for the Psion. Then turned loggin off and logged out of the UNIX machine.
I then copied the 'log' file into the OPL directory on the Psion, did a small amount of editing on the file to tidy it up and compiled it. (Quite Easily Done)' Steve Waterworth I attempted to follow the above directions and only succeeded with effort and random luck. I didn't know how to get my unix machine (sunOS) to accept a login, for starters. I tried /usr/etc/getty ttyb, with the psion plugged in and the comms program running, but all that happened was that the login prompt came up in the window where I typed /usr/etc/getty ttyb and nothing seemed to happen at all on the psion. And the login prompt was all garbled too. I tried /usr/etc/getty 02ttyb (looking in the file /etc/ttys for hints) and this didn't work either.
/etc/ttytab gave some more hints. I tried /usr/etc/getty std.9600 02ttyb and this seemed to be promising - it produced an error message on my console. /usr/etc/getty std.9600 ttyb seemed close to the mark. When I hit the psion, funny little i's come out on its screen. I have tried using ascii protocol and switching the xon/xoff on and off, and I've tried xmodem and ymodem.
Setting the parity seems important. By experimenting I believe that I need to use odd parity, rather than even or none (because odd gives no errors and even gives them).
However, the sun manual says that even parity is the default for getty. At this point I read the SunOS system and network admin manual (p.322-355, Ch 11) and changed the psion default settings (?). I made these changes: under Port, set data bits to 7, stop bits to 1, parity to even.
Now characters are correctly echoed to the terminal, but no prompt. I tried running the same command as root.
And then the key step was this: I edited /etc/ttytab, changing the ttyb entry from ttyb '/usr/etc/getty std.9600' unknown off local secure to ttyb '/usr/etc/getty std.9600' unknown on local secure then typed kill -1 1 to inform init of this change. Then SUDDENLY! - a login prompt comes on the psion.
Here are the magic settings:. TRANSFER.
protocol xmodem CRC. SPECIAL. PORT.
Baud rate 9600. Data bits 7.
Stop bits 1. Parity Even. Ignore No. Handshakes All off, except xon/xoff = On.
Translates - default Note, however, that Steve Waterworth says that 19200 baud 8 bits XON/XOFF flow NO parity is more likely to be correct. I cd'd to the place with opl file and did Transfer-Capture, then cat file, then Transfer-Capture off, and the file is transferred OK (to the wrd directory) except it has had all return characters turned into double returns. But it'll translate anyway. It seems now that I changed /etc/ttytab, I can no longer use ttyb to run p3nfs! I'll change it back. I also had to chmod 666 /dev/ttyb to get it back to normal. The same day that I achieved the above `quite easy' (not) transfer of nfsc.opl to a new psion, I had my first ever failure of nfsc.
Using the.opo program, I found that when copying files onto the psion by cp or by tar xvf, the transfer would fail with error messages on the unix machine like 'p3nfsd: select: timeout' and on the psion 'XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX SYS$PRGO.$07 exit number 27'. This crash left the unix machine in an unpleasant state with the cp command in a zombie state.
Fortunately Juergen Weigert (jnweiger@uni-erlangen.de) was superbly helpful. He told me I should use the nfsc43d.app program instead. (I used to always use the small and simple nfsc.opl program, and didn't see any reason for using the bigger.app program, which can do terminal emulation and other things.) Apparently the.app program does better transmission. I set the serial line parameters to the defaults with the exception of flowcontrol - hardware.
Also set the baud rate to 19200 (strangely, with the baud rate at 9600, it failed). Then I ran this p3nfsd -u mackay -tty /dev/ttyb and I found that the file transferred OK. Without the flowcontrol the transfer failed in the same way as before.
Was this just coincidence? I transferred the file for a second time, no problem. I have not figured out what caused this problem. I guess it's a hardware problem, but I tried it on two tty ports and on two different suns and with two different psions, and all of them were unable to copy a 60K file without crashing - a problem I never had before. Three cheers for Juergen!
Conclusion: use up to date p3nfs. I have used version 4.3 happily for a long time now. This is in response to my email to him asking how to get the psion to be accepted as a terminal by the unix box.
You are on the right track with getty, it has the syntax of: getty line speed Where line is the device /dev/tty???? Speed is an entry in /etc/gettydefs which describes the tty settings on my machine the entry in gettydefs looks like this: P # B19200 HUPCL CS8 CLOCAL CREAD IXON IXOFF ICRNL ECHO MRTS # B19200 HUPCL CS8 CLOCAL CREAD IXON IXOFF ICANON ECHO ECHOE ECHOK IGNPAR ICRNL ISIG OPOST ONLCR TAB3 MRTS #login: #P The MRTS flag is HP specific I think, so you might need to remove this one. You can check your entries with 'getty -c filename' Obviously you will need to ensire that the comms on the Psion is set up to match the gettdefs: 19200 baud 8 bits XON/XOFF flow NO parity If you have the man pages installed on your machine or a machine you have access to I suggest you check the entries for getty and gettydefs. If you want to permenantly enable login you can put a line in /etc/inittab but be careful because if you make a mistake editing /etc/inittab you can stop your machine from booting up.
I ran across your PSION link in your homepage, seems like I can add my 2c to some of your problems. My comments are valid for a SPARC 5 under SunOS 4.1.3U1. how to transfer ASCII files between a PC and a UNIX machine: The problem is differing character sets - but as nearly always on UNIX, there is a tool for it already. Check out manpages for 'unix2dos' and 'dos2unix' which should be available as commands under your SunOS. To transfer a SUN file to PSION, use first on SUN unix2dos and then transfer to PSION. how to transfer data between PSION and SUN without p3nfsd: You have digged into the getty settings already. For me the following procedure has worked fine: On SUN On PSION - - Close all active applications Start 'Comms' application Check serial parameters: 9600 Baud, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, no parity, ignore parity = yes Check handshake: Switch off all handshakes in a shell: sleep 60000 /dev/ttya Select 'receive file' menu entry cat /dev/ttya Note: The default speed of my ttya is 9600 baud which happens to be the default speed on PSION as well.
If this is different on your SUN, then you need to add a '-speed ' flag to the above 'stty' command. I'm not sure why I had switched off XON/XOFF - but it worked. Best Regards, /Oliver - Oliver Meis Group Manager EED/X/TPC Ericsson Eurolab Deutschland Tel.: +49 2407 575 267 Ericsson Allee 1 email: eedolm@aachen.ericsson.se linux: Aim: to get nfsc.app and p3nfsd talking to each other with a new linux machine (a linux laptop IBM thinkpad) My diagnosis of the problem: I think I don't know the right name for the serial port. I have tried /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/ttyS1 because both of these are said to be the standard names for the 9-pin ports at the back of the machine. Explanation: by default, the stupid IBM machine comes with its 9-pin port DISABLED. (So that the infrared port can be enabled.) Solution: we put the machine into windoze, followed the simple for disabling the infrared port and putting the 9-pin port from COM4 to COM1 (/dev/ttyS0).
Service Manual Kia
Rebooted windoze, then rebooted linux (which inherits the windoze settings). Then p3nfsd worked just fine. Unresolved questions: whether we could also use the 25-pin port next to the 9-pin port; what that port would be called; whether we could have used the 9-pin port by talking to 'COM4' somehow.