I’m running Vista Ultimate 32 bit and have problems with the USB to Serial connection on a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 laptop.
When I plug my Parallax USB/Serial converter and program a Basic Stamp it works fine, but when I plug that same converter to the Bot Board, the Basic Atom SW cannot find the Atom.
Also, when I switch to a Prolific brand USB/Serial cable, the Basic Atom SW still cannot find the Atom, even though Vista says the cable mounted successfully.
1-Does anyone know where I can get the latest Prolific drivers for Vista? (The company website has a download page but NO downloads at all!!)
2-isn’t it about time the Bot board had a USB port ??? (sorry, but I’m a bit frustrated…)
Have you looked in device manager to see how the USB adapter is recognized (assigned port and such)? Connect the rx and tx pins on the adapter and send some bytes using lynxterm to see if the adapter is working.
Adding USB to the Bot Board would be the exact equivalent of adding the chip inside a USB to serial cable. You would still have to have a properly configured “serial” port. The bandwidth for programming a stamp is much less than what is required to program an Atom. You can find several posts concerning “serial” port settings. These must be set up properly, and it does not matter if you have USB or serial on the PC. In fact some USB ports are configured the same as 9 pin serial ports. Here is another option to consider. lynxmotion.com/images/html/build126.htm
Even though I understand your reasoning I can’t agree with your decision to keep a serial port instead of a USB port. I didn’t say to keep the Serial and add the USB, but rather to dump the serial port altogether. Look at how Parallax has most of their boards all USB now. Plus, with USB there is NO configuration (except for the driver). Plug it in and it works! Its a win-win proposition because users will get to programming their Atoms sooner. Gone are the days of 9600,n,8,1 port configuration!
