How to interact with the Amber board
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
C-Kermit is a portable Scriptable Network and Serial Communication Software for Unix.
- To install C-Kermit type on a terminal
$ sudo apt-get install ckermit
-
Connect the Amber to the PC through a USB-miniUSB cable and power on the board.
- Type on a terminal
$ dmesg
and locate the name of the serial device.
- 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
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.
- To install Minicom type on a terminal
$ sudo apt-get install minicom
-
Connect the Amber to the PC through the USB-miniUSB cable and power on the board.
-
Type on a terminal
$ dmesg
and locate the name of the serial device.
-
To open Minicom type:
$ sudo minicom -D /dev/ttyXXX
replacing
/dev/ttyXXX
with the name of your serial device. - 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 thenZ
to access the help menu.PressO
to configure Minicom.Select “Serial port setup” and disable “Hardware Flow Control”.PressESC
to go back to the main window.