[BRLTTY] OOOPS! something really wrong with the driver or my Optelec

[Aldo]

Hi Dave:

On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 02:12:52PM -0500, Dave Mielke wrote:
> [quoted lines by Aldo on 2009/11/11 at 19:08 +0100]
> 
> >That had worked but after having tried the up down cursor keys, i was on top
> >of the screen and suddenly the BC640 stopped with moving, only the text line
> >on top of that screen was showed but no any movement in the keys.
> 
> Is this always the way to cause the hang? If you can give me a way that will 
> always cause the problem then it may be easier for me to figure out what the 
> cause is.

I may do something wrong with pressing keys without knowing what they are
used for, but a few minutes ago it had hanged again,
showing lots of *********************** on screen, and something moving
rapidly.
After unplugging then replugging and resetting On, it didn't produced
braille again, so I only rebooted.
For now it works again.

I'm only playing now *carefully* with the five front keys:
  left  left-up  cursor  right-down  right

I hope I didn't caused the hang myself yesterday ? Anyway I don't know how
except if some keys are supposed causing unexpected actions?

> >Power of, power on, ALVA BC640 ready etc message, but nothing more. 
> 
> I don't think that powering it off and on fully resets the USB connection 
> because the BC640 contains a couple of internal storage devices. 
> To fully reset 
> it you need to disconnect and reconnect the USB cable.

For now I tested it, removing cable and setting Off, recabling then setting
On, and it works now: the name Alva BC640 does appear, then USB connected, then
the "blip" of brltty and the message BrlTty 4.1. 

But no  asteroid:~#  prompt as long as I don't press <ENTER>...

> >No, I don't know at all how to enter in its menu.
> 
> You need to press three of the smartpad keys at the same time to enter the 
> BC640's menu. They are the left and right inner long keys and the bottom key at 
> the center. To leave the menu, press the leftmost long key on the smartpad.

OK that works. 

> >AFter the problem occured again this morning, I plugged out and again in the
> >usb cable but it doesn't restarted brltty or so, no beeps, no braille
> >prompt:~# or so.
> 
> What if you do both, i.e. replug the cable and restart brltty?

YES now it works, except no prompt as long as I don't pressed <ENTER>.

So OK it may have been something around the cable (I hope one usb
socket on my laptop isn't broken ? ...)  
 
> >But I discovered that halting the laptop suddenly showed BRLTTY terminated
> >as message and that's very strange. 
> 
> I wonder if that means that something is causing brltty to actually shut down 
> rather than hang.

I don't know.

> >> of the two displays. Then, ionstead of specifying -dusb:, add the serial 
> >> number, e.g. -dusb:12345. 
> >
> >Hm, in this example you are talking about a serial 12345 while the bluetooth
> >param in brltty.conf specifies xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx  so its not clear to me. 
> 
> For Bluetooth, the data part of the device name is the Bluetooth Device 
>Address 

OK, but I don't know how I have to find it somewhere...

> whereas for USB it's the device's serial number.
> 
> >And for USB (it's currently USB connected, not bt) I don't know how I should
> >know the serial of my Satellite: I have always used braille-device usb:
> 
> I don't remember if the Satellite's menu tells you the serial number or not. 
> The BC640's menu, however, does show you its serial number.
> 
> I'm sure you can find the Satellite's serial nmber via lsusb, although you may 
> need to use its -v (verbose) option.
> 
> Do (without the qutoes) "lsusb -v". Check the lines which start with the word 
> "iProduct" until you find the one for your Satellte. The very next line should 
> start with the word "iSerial", and should contain the serial number.

Well, currently only the BC640 is connected. I am confused enough for now
so I do concentrate me on the Optelec. But its very nice to know that some
may use 2 displays at the same time! 

I attached the lsusb -v output for you: 
I found something like a serial for my BC640; can you confirm it's the right
one? 	00A0962CDB29
?
If it works with the -d usb:mmmmm parameter on the fly, I suppose it will
in brltty.conf too?
   braille-device usb:00A0962CDB29
?
 
For having that same dispaly in usb + bt, can you give me a template of
device line for the brltty.conf ?

> >> you can run more than one brltty at the same time without a problem.
> >
> >I don't understand what this means: is it supposed concerning
> >/etc/brltty.conf ?
> >if so can you give me an example please ?
> >Since English isn't my mother language I'm sure I'll much better understand 
> >with an example than by theory, appology. 
> 
> You don't need to apologize for not understanding English very well. I suspect 
> that I understand your native language even less. :-)

That's why I try to ask then do step by step, maybe that will help.
 
> Let's say that your Satellite has the serial number 1234, and that your 
>BC640 
> has the serial number 5678. You can safely start two brltty's if you do it 
>like 
> this:
> 
>    brltty -bal -dusb:1234
>    brltty -bal -dusb:5678

Yes this is clear to me now.

I'm in fact only working(/testing) the Optelec, so in fact I'm looking
for the usb+bt config for it but for now I did compiled a static 4.1 bin, so
maybe I have to recompile again if I'm looking for usb+bt support for the
Optelec ? 

> >> Yes. SmartpadF1+Thumb1 goes to the top-left, and SmartpadF1+Thumb5 goes 
> >>to the 
> >> bottom-left.
> >
> >Is smartpad f1 the key in center of the navigation pad ? 
> 
> The center key is called Enter. The four keys around the Enter key are called 
> Left, Up, Right, and Down. The four long keys, from left to right, are called 
> F1, F2, F3, and F4. 
>F1, therefore, is the outer left key, F2 is the inner left 
> key, F3 is the inner right key, and F4 is the outer right key.

Ah OK. I see; it's like this:
		  ;
	f1  f2  enter  f3  f4
 		  ;

> Assuming that the BC640 is working with brltty, pressing F1 by itself will 
> toggle you to/from the help page for the BC640.
OK, will have a look around.

Thanx Dave.

Aldo.