{"id":294,"date":"2024-12-12T02:46:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-12T02:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/?p=294"},"modified":"2024-12-12T02:46:12","modified_gmt":"2024-12-12T02:46:12","slug":"programming-a-prm80-radio-with-a-modern-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/programming-a-prm80-radio-with-a-modern-computer\/","title":{"rendered":"Programming a PRM80 radio with a modern computer."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There is much angst about programming Philips\/Simoco PRM80 radios with modern computers lacking a real serial port.  For many years I&#8217;ve kept an old laptop available for just that purpose.  Today however, after getting grumpy with how slow the laptop was, discovered that it doesn&#8217;t need to be that hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hardware<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You only need two components:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>FTDI serial to USB interface.  As long as the board has breakouts for DTR, DSR, RTS and CTS, it will be suitable.  These can be had for a couple of dollars from AliExpress or Ebay.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A length of cable with a RJ45 on one end.  I keep damaged network cables for just this requirement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Hardware Preparation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first step is to bridge the DTR &lt;=> DSR and RTS &lt;=> CTS lines.  Oddly, the DSR was printed backwards on my board, labelled as RSD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_125953-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_125953-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-295\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_125953-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_125953-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_125953-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_125953-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_125953-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The second step was to connect lines 7 and 8 from the network cable to the TX and RX breakouts respectively.  To be clear, 7 &lt;=> TX, 8 &lt;=> RX.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130022-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" data-id=\"296\" src=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130022-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-296\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130022-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130022-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130022-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130022-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130022-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/RJ45-Pinout-T-568B.avif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"881\" height=\"800\" data-id=\"297\" src=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/RJ45-Pinout-T-568B.avif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-297\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/RJ45-Pinout-T-568B.avif 881w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/RJ45-Pinout-T-568B-300x272.avif 300w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/RJ45-Pinout-T-568B-768x697.avif 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 881px) 100vw, 881px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And that&#8217;s it for the programming cable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130102-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130102-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-298\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130102-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130102-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130102-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130102-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/20241212_130102-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Software<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Install the latest version of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dosbox.com\/\">DOSBox<\/a>.  At the time of writing that was 0.74-3.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Download the programming software for your radio variant from the AusLMRadio Groups.IO group.  You will need to join in order to access the file repository.  <a href=\"https:\/\/groups.io\/g\/AusLMRadio\/files\/Simoco%20PRM80\">AusLMRadio@groups.io | Files<\/a>.  Once downloaded, extract them into a folder on your computer.  For the rest of the setup, I&#8217;m going to assume you&#8217;ve placed them in c:\/prm80.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Putting it together<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Plug your programming cable into your computer and make note of its COM port; COM7 in my case.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Start DOSBox, and issue the following commands:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\">&lt;code&gt;mount d c:\\prm80\nserial1=directserial realport:com7\nd:&lt;\/code&gt;<\/pre>\n\n\n\n<ol start=\"3\" class=\"wp-block-list\"><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>At this point, you should now be able to change directory to your programming software and run it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the record, my environment is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Computer: Lenovo T440s Core i7<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>OS: Windows 10 64 bit.  All updates applied at the time of writing.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Radio: PRM8030R<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Good luck!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lance<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>December 2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is much angst about programming Philips\/Simoco PRM80 radios with modern computers lacking a real serial port. For many years I&#8217;ve kept an old laptop available for just that purpose. Today however, after getting grumpy with how slow the laptop was, discovered that it doesn&#8217;t need to be that hard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":299,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":300,"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions\/300"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lance.conryclan.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}