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Psion II and Macbook Air

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2025 10:51 am
by SYHD1200
Morning everyone.

I sold my organisers and PC hardware/software a number of years ago now, but I still have an interest. It’s the old old story, that I shouldn’t have cleared the stuff out. So, the problem is that whilst I do have an old DOS based laptop around somewhere my current laptop is a Macbook Air. Am I able to run comms software for the Organiser from a Macbook and what would I need to purchase to be able to do so? I do have many other questions but if I can’t communicate laptop to Organiser and vice versa then there’s no point in asking them.

Any help that you can give will be really appreciated.

Thanks all
Steve

Comms Link for Macintosh

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2025 3:37 pm
by Martin
Hi Steve

The Republished Comms-Link Manual (here) - Page 26 - Section 4 - Connecting to a Macintosh.

I'm not sure how the operating system has changed over the years, but I think this must be your starting point. Jaap has the (CL for Mac) (zip) or (sit). Psion Comms Link software for the Apple Macintosh. Place it in root directory, not on desktop.

I would be interested to hear how you get on..

Sincerely
Martin

Re: Psion II and Macbook Air

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2025 11:13 pm
by ThirdDeepLens
I also have a MacBook Air M1 but I haven't yet tried using comms link with it. I think the CL for Mac was for the classic Macs with Motorola 68000, if so it might be tricky.

I've been successful with a Raspberry Pi 4 & 5 running DOSBOX and the DOS comms link. I bought a USB to serial cable FTDI rather than PL2303 and followed the instructions on Jaap's website for setting up the ports etc.

When I get time I'm thinking of trying Virtualbox and running linux and copying the raspberry pi setup to see if that works.

Re: Psion II and Macbook Air

Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2025 8:06 am
by amenjet
The Pl2303 works with some computers then. The USB adapters that I designed used the FTC chip, which seems to work with most computers. I also designed a PL2303 adapter PCB but haven't built one yet. Is it worth building one? Is there any advantage to that chip?