programming norns over serial

[nihilazo]

I’d like to program my norns over the serial connection through plugging stock norns into a PC through the power socket, due to the fact that my wifi connection is unstable. I would use the hotspot mode on norns but while connected to the hotspot I can’t see other stuff on the internet, so I’d like to use serial. I can transfer my programs across to norns over serial, but is there some way to access a matron REPL over serial, or a more complete development environment?

[dani_derks]

hi hi! hope all’s well

@nihilazo

is there some way to access a matron REPL over serial

yes! once connected via serial + terminal, you can execute maiden repl (source) .

@nihilazo

a more complete development environment?

the information at https://norns.community/en/articles/development-setup hasn’t yet been added to the main docs, but the tips + videos there should cover getting started. here’s a great overview from @tyleretters:

norns: development setup

please let us know if we can help with anything else!

[nihilazo]

cool! Is there some way to mount norns over serial the same way that tyler does with sshfs?

[zebra]

nope. gotta use your 1970 mindset for that transport.

you can transfer files with a modest amount of faff

(quoting myself ffrom discord)

so actually - i was being a dumdum with last post - it is not so difficult, esp. if you are just transmitting ascii text files with no special characters.

just gave it a quick run through to be sure

on my laptop (ubuntu), norns usb-serial port is /dev/ttyUSB0 - this will be something else on mac/whatever

on the norns, the port is called /dev/ttyAMA0.

steps go like:

• on laptop, open screen session and connect to norns
  screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200

• on norns, save output from the port to a file
  cat < /dev/ttyAMA0 > test.lua

• end the screen session with ctl+a,k, y

• back on my machine, send the file:
  echo test.lua > /dev/ttyUSB0

• start another screen session just like the first, ctl+c to stop the transfer

and voila, test.lua exists, maybe with a few extra newlines.

---

if your file isn’t plain text, the steps are the same except you’ll want to encode and decode using base64 on both ends. (this is installed on norns by default, whereas unfortunately things like kermit and sz are not.)

(oh, i see you already know how to trasnfer files. well i’ll leave that there anyway. it’s a recipe that does not require any additional tools to be installed over norns base image so will work in a pinch)

i install emacs-nox on my nornses…

[xmacex]

@zebra

kermit

Oh kermit and sweet sweet memories from another æon. Zmodem was big for chatting (“qusoing”) while downing the weekly QWK packages. In the future maybe llllllllines will work over uucp…?