Board connection to PC

The Amber board can be connected to a PC through the USB serial port. To interact with the board we can use two open-source serial communication softwares.

C-Kermit is a portable Scriptable Network and Serial Communication Software for Unix.

1. To install C-Kermit type on a terminal

   $ sudo apt-get install ckermit  

2. Connect the Amber to the PC through a USB-miniUSB cable and power on the board.

3. Type on a terminal

   $ dmesg

   and locate the name of the serial device.

   

4. Open the .kermrc file (create a new one if not existing)
   $ cd /home/
$ gedit .kermrc
   and append the following lines to the file

set line /dev/ttyXXX 
set speed 115200  
set carrier-watch off  
set handshake none  
set flow-control none  
robust  
set file type bin 
set file name lit  
set rec pack 1000  
set send pack 1000  
set window 5  

replacing /dev/ttyXXX with the name of your serial device.
Save and close the file.

• To open C-Kermit type:
  $ kermit -c

Minicom is a menu-driven serial communication program and can be used in alternative to C-Kermit.
In our tests we have verified that C-Kermit is actually better when it comes to image transfering over serial port. But for interacting with the board Minicom works just fine.

1. To install Minicom type on a terminal

   $ sudo apt-get install minicom  

2. Connect the Amber to the PC through the USB-miniUSB cable and power on the board.

3. Type on a terminal

   $ dmesg  

   and locate the name of the serial device.

4. To open Minicom type:

   $ sudo minicom -D /dev/ttyXXX  

   replacing /dev/ttyXXX with the name of your serial device.

   

    

5. Disable flow control, to allow the access to the bootloader interface by pressing a key before the kernel is loaded.From the Minicom window press CTRL+A and then Z to access the help menu.Press O to configure Minicom.Select “Serial port setup” and disable “Hardware Flow Control”.Press ESC to go back to the main window.