Ottawa Canada Dear Carrie and List:
OK you have a BrailleNote Mpower and a Braille Blazer and want to connect the two. You have a 9-pin serial cable from the Mpower and some kind of cord for the Blazer. Well you will want the power cord for the Blazer for sure and also a serial cable that fits it. I believe the Blazer has a 25-pin serial port but I'm not sure if it is male or female. The gender of the serial port on the Blazer affects the cabling or adapters you need. OK if the free end of the Mpower serial cable is male and your Blazer has a 25-pin female serial port, you need a serial cable with a 25-pin male end and a 9-pin female end. If your computer store only sells serial cables with 9 or 25 pin connectors on both ends, you need a 9 to 25 pin adapter which typically sells for $10.00 at any Radio Shack or computer store. Just plug everything together, turn on the power to both units, get out the manuals for both units and refer to the section titled: Configuring the Serial Port. You also need to select serial input for the Blazer and this too is covered in its manual. But what do you do if after you connect the 25-pin serial cable to the Blazer and the 9-pin serial cable to the Empower and have two male or female connectors staring at each other? Well you need a 9 to 25-pin adapter as mentioned above and a double male or double female adapter, called a Gender Bender. You also need something called a Null Modem Adapter. All this stuff comes in 9 and 25 pin versions. Some stores sell adapters that do multiple things, like 9 to 25 pin, and Null Modem in one unit. For the sake of your sanity, I recommend you buy adapters that do exactly one thing, not several things in one adapter. OK now we have to select the settings for the serial port on the Blazer and set it up for serial input. Get out your manual for the Blazer and carefully read the section on configuring it. Serial port settings: You need to select the same kind of handshaking, also known as flow control, for both the Blazer and Mpower. You have a choice on the Blazer of Hardware or Software. Not sure if the Mpower gives you a choice here, so if it doesn't, set the Blazer to whatever the Mpower uses. If you have a choice, hardware handshaking is better than software as it is simpler and quicker. Data Rate, also known as Baud Rate or Speed: Choose the highest speed the Blazer and Mpower have in common, typically 9,600, 19,200, 38,400 etc. While the Blazer is a slow embosser, a high data rate will stuff its memory full of text to emboss and the flow control mentioned above will prevent it from overflowing. At least it will if the flow control is working right. Data bits: You can have 7 or 8. I like 8. Parity:: You can have: Even, Odd, or None. With 8 data bits you want none. Stop Bits: You can have 1, 1 and 1/2, or 2. One is adequate. Save your Blazer configuration settings as described in its manual. Now we configure the Mpower. Get into the options menu with function o on a QWERTY model or space o on a Braille keyboard. Cursor down to serial settings or whatever sounds like it has these settings, ;like Communication Settings etc. Choose the same settings for the Mpower as you did for the Blazer. Save your settings. Now the Blazer is connected to the Mpower and the Blazer has Braille paper in it, you are ready to emboss. Either select a Braille file then select emboss, or select a print file, select translate into Braille then select emboss. You should be rewarded by nice, fresh, Braille being produced on the Blazer. After it has embossed a page or two, pause the Blazer and see if it embossed your file correctly. If it hasn't, go check your serial port settings and ensure they are both set the same. If you get stuck, ask questions on this list or Skype or telephone me. My NYC number is in New York, NY and is covered by your unlimited U. S. long distance plan which many people have these days. Happy reading, plugging in, configuring and embossing! Brian Brian K. Lingard E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +1 (613) 247-0665 Mobile: +1 (613) 725-6602 New York, NY Tel: +1 (646) 797-2862 FAX: +1 (613) 247-9998 Skype: ve3yiab2ji15 This message composed using J-Say and Dragon Naturally Speaking. ___ Replies to this message will go directly to the sender. If your reply would be useful to the list, please send a copy to the list as well. To leave the BrailleNote list, send a blank message to [email protected] To view the list archives or change your preferences, visit http://list.humanware.com/mailman/listinfo/braillenote
