PARCP-USB

[joysfera]

PARCP 4.0.0 has been released yesterday. To celebrate this major event I have updated the PARCP microsite. If you don't see bunch of images and logos there please force reloading the page to refresh your browser caches (press Ctrl+R, Ctrl+F5 etc.).

The most exciting new feature of PARCP 4.0 is the possibility of starting arbitrary programs locally and even remotely! Thus PARCP can acts almost like a desktop, as it can copy, move, rename, delete files, create folders, set system date and time and newly also run any programs.

With the new EXEC (and LEXEC) commands you can, for example, pack ton of small files before you transfer them via PARCP onto the other computer and unpack it there. It's as simple as:

Code: Select all

#### PARCP batch file ####
CD c:\tools\packers
EXEC zip.ttp -a d:\tmp\projects.zip c:\projects\gfa\*.lst
CD d:\tmp
LCD /backup
GET projects.zip
LEXEC /usr/bin/unzip projects.zip
LQUIT

There's also a ton of bug fixes and few other improvements. The history.txt describes it in detail.

Hope you'll enjoy it!

Petr

P.S. I have lowered the PARCP-USB price in USD because USD is getting stronger compared to EUR...

[russ]

Great and many thanks

[dhedberg]

Fantastic work! With the remote exec command, cross-development for the Atari has become a lot simpler! With a simple PARCP script it's now possible to do all the programming/assembling/compiling/linking on the PC and execute the result on real hardware, without having to manually copy any files.

[joysfera]

Those waiting for Mac OS X binary... I am going to start working on it again but you might find my annoucement/public promise about releasing the PARCP source code interesting: http://atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... 8&p=271438

[dbsys]

PARCP 4.0.0 has been released yesterday.

Great news. Great work.

Thank you very much.

[sqward]

Fantastic work! With the remote exec command, cross-development for the Atari has become a lot simpler! With a simple PARCP script it's now possible to do all the programming/assembling/compiling/linking on the PC and execute the result on real hardware, without having to manually copy any files.

You can do the same with my uiptool: http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=27365

It has a simple REST API that *allows you to upload and run files on your TOS machine from any PC/Mac with curl or any other similar tool.

*Netusbee required.

[dhedberg]

Fantastic work! With the remote exec command, cross-development for the Atari has become a lot simpler! With a simple PARCP script it's now possible to do all the programming/assembling/compiling/linking on the PC and execute the result on real hardware, without having to manually copy any files.

You can do the same with my uiptool: http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=27365
It has a simple REST API that *allows you to upload and run files on your TOS machine from any PC/Mac with curl or any other similar tool.
*Netusbee required.

I planned to check it out but as I never achieved speeds above 10kB per second with my EtherNEC adapter I went with PARCP-USB instead. With the PARCP-USB with Windows 8.1 at one end and a Falcon030 at the other end I get around 100kB per second in plain TOS. No network drivers needed, just PARCP in the AUTO folder. I think the simplicity (and speed) is what makes the PARCP-USB solution so great.

[sqward]

You can get similar speed with uiptool. It doesn't need any drivers, talks to the network card directly so can do better then Sting or Mint. And can start from auto folder as well

[dhedberg]

You can get similar speed with uiptool. It doesn't need any drivers, talks to the network card directly so can do better then Sting or Mint. And can start from auto folder as well

Ah, I guess I should have given it a try before I sold the EtherNEC then!

[joysfera]

Hi all,

I have managed to build a binary of PARCP for Mac OS X, this time including the USB support so it should be fully working. If there is someone with PARCP-USB able and willing to test it please tell me your e-mail and I'll send you the binary.

Thanks,

Petr

[crashman]

PM sent.

[rpineau]

Any update on the OS X version ?
Rodolphe

[joysfera]

Any update on the OS X version ?

The binary for OS X does not communicate right for some reason. I've been trying to obtain a Mac to debug it.

[rpineau]

Are you using libusb ? or are you doing native OS X usb stack programing (not simple) ?
I ported a few linux app that uses libusb and that usually works well.
Let me know if I can help (I do some dev on linux and OS X so I'm not totally clueless ).
Rodolphe

[joysfera]

Are you using libusb ? or are you doing native OS X usb stack programing (not simple) ?
I ported a few linux app that uses libusb and that usually works well.
Let me know if I can help (I do some dev on linux and OS X so I'm not totally clueless ).
Rodolphe

PARCP uses the HIDAPI library to be portable so I was kind of surprised it didn't work right out of the box. Maybe the HIDAPI library has an issue, I don't know.
What I do know, though, is that I will use your offer for help. Get ready for that

[joysfera]

Guys,

let me include a pretty exciting screenshot here:



Thanks to great debugging help of Rodolphe Pineau and testing efforts of Frank Lukas we now have a native PARCP binary for Apple Mac OS X - running on both 32-bit and 64-bit Intel architectures (actually, technically the 64-bit CPU architecture is from AMD, but since Apple uses Intel CPUs and Intel copied it from AMD let me call it Intel here . PARCP ran well on old MacBook with OS X 10.6.8 as well as new MacPro with OS X 10.10.3. It's a very fresh success so I haven't been able to prepare a full release package yet but for those impatient Mac PARCP users - go get the binaries at http://joy.sophics.cz/parcp/download.htm while they're hot.

If you're curious, the problem was indeed in the HIDAPI USB library. As soon as Rodolphe figured it out PARCP started working without any changes. Cool. So single source code runs unmodified on all desktop operating systems

Now beware: do not kill running PARCP by force closing the terminal window PARCP runs in.. Always quit it cleanly using the F10 key (or Shift+F10 for F20). If F10 is not accessible in your terminal then use the '0' (zero) key. Similarly, any Fx (function) key can be replaced in PARCP by the equivallent number key. So say for creating a new folder you can press either F7 or just 7.

BTW, this works also in PARCP on MS-Windows and on Linux where the Function keys are often used by the desktop already (F1 = Desktop Help, F2 = Run App etc.).

Now enjoy the new Apple Mac support in PARCP!

[crashman]

Happy to read it!

And sad, because as soon as the new version hit my email, my Mac's HDD died...

Murphy's law, I guess...

[dhedberg]

Great team work! How's the sales going?

[joysfera]

Great team work! How's the sales going?

70 shipped + I have taken 2 pre-orders (as I'm currently out of stock, but will have ten new adapters in a week or two).

[firyembers]

Hi Petr
Can you put me down for one..i can paypal you .
I will send you an eMail from your website
Thanks

[joysfera]

Yes, will do. Seems like Daniel was right - we're at 91 % of the sales goal now

[Atari030]

Looks like high time I got one too, I'm sick of zip disks and BIGDOS.

[joysfera]

98 %
Seems like we can make it this year

[dhedberg]

98 %
Seems like we can make it this year

Awesome! Only satisfied users/customers so far? Every time I cross-assemble on my PC and it automatically transfers and runs my executable on the Atari there's a big smile on my face!

[joysfera]

I've got two or three guys with dead parallel ports (some STs do have faulty printer ports but their owners never know it because they never tried printing). Luckily these three guys had another spare ST (where PARCP-USB worked OK) so they weren't that unhappy, just the initial impression was negative until I explained them the issue.

There are also some guys (I think three or four) that sometimes report communication issues in certain HW combinations. Say they report "PC-ST OK, but Mac-ST often fails". This is hard to debug as it points to some HW issue in the Mac (in this particular example, not generally, because there are other Mac users that are 100% satisfied).

But generally I'd say the satisfaction level is above 90 %, perhaps even above 95 %. I try hard to help each one that reports any issues. Unfortunately the guys that report problem initially stop replying later when I ask for more details so I am often unsure whether they resolved it or simply gave up. That's why I cannot claim there are 100 % of satisfied users because I simply don't know.

I'm looking forward to releasing the PARCP source code as I hope other programmers will come and help improve the software, maybe even replace the communication protocol with something more solid, perhaps with auto-correction of communication errors?

I'm glad you smile and hope you cross compile often