Wireless freedom revisited

There was an USB-to-serial converter cable lying around also, which I used to read the SMS from my Nokia 6100 phone. I knew that this cable would be of use with Linux also, so it might be helpful. Connecting it to my Workstation, the modules list showed

$ lsmod
pl2303 20612 1

so I knew it was a Prolific PL-2303 USB to serial bridge controller sealed inside the USB plug. In case you don't know, this chip is so small the plug is just a tiny little bit thicker than normal, which makes it ideal for use in adapter cords and so on. The other end of the cable was a Nokia Pop port plug, naturally. I didn't want to lose it's functionality, so I cut the cable roughly ten centimeters before the plug and soldered a male PS2 jack to the end with the Pop port plug and a female PS2 connector to the part with the USB to serial controller. The joints were each isolated with tape and covered with pieces of CAT5 cable mantle, which fitted just firmly enough to stick in place without glue. A quick test showed the adapter was still working. So I continued.

The serial port 1 of the WGT634U comes already with pins, so there is no need for additional work here. I decided to use a flat three pin Molex connector already fitted with wires that I bought from a local store (-,60 €). It's the kind of connector that is even flatter than the typical floppy power connector, so two of them would easily match beside each other on the serial ports. Unfortunately these connectors were too long and the top of the router casing now would not fit anymore. After carefully removing the wires I cut a good two millimeters or so with a sharp kitchen knife and filed the edges until they were smooth. Now half a millimeter of the metal plugs at the end of the wires would look out, but that was acceptable. The top would fit now.

As I already said, I didn't want to dremel the casing, so I threaded the three wires first through another piece of CAT5 cable mantle inside and then through the airing holes just above the USB port. To the free ends I finally soldered another PS2 jack and then closed the casing. Now I had a router with a serial adapter plug. In case you are interested, here are the pinouts:

Nokia Pop port pinout

(left) 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 (right)
Screen facing up

01 Charge (V Charge)
02 GND (Charge GND)
03 ACI (ACI - Insertion & removal detection)
04 VOUT (DC out)
05 NC (Not connected)
06 FBUS RX
07 FBUS TX
08 GND (Data GND)
09 XMIC N (Audio in - Ext. Mic input)
10 XMIC P (Audio in - Ext. Mic input)
11 HSEAR N (Audio out - Ext. Audio out - left)
12 HSEAR P (Audio out - Ext. Audio out - left)
13 HSEAR R N (Audio out - Ext. audio out - right)
14 HSEAR R P (Audio out - Ext. audio out - right)

Pop Port Plug (seen from the back, the soldering lugs)
Screen facing up

(left) 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 (right)
        03 05 07 09 11 13

Connected were

06 FBUS RX white
07 FBUS TX green
08 GND (Data GND) black (twisted together with the cable shielding)

Netgear WGT634U serial port

This is J7, which corresponds to serial port 1
Seen from the LAN ports facing up

VCC
TX
RX
GND

Now I connected the USB to serial bridge controller to the Netgear router, fired up minicom with the parameters 115200 8N1 and powered on the router:

CFE version 1.0.34 for BCM95365R (32bit,SP,LE)
Build Date: Tue Feb 24 03:21:41 CST 2004 (root@jackylinux)
Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002 Broadcom Corporation.

Add MAC client version(DNI).
Initializing Arena.
Initializing Devices.
et0: Broadcom BCM47xx 10/100 Mbps Ethernet Controller
CPU type 0x29007: 200MHz
Total memory: 0x2000000 bytes (32MB)

Total memory used by CFE: 0x81BB1280 - 0x82000000 (4517248)
Initialized Data: 0x81BB1280 - 0x81BB3E90 (11280)
BSS Area: 0x81BB3E90 - 0x81BB45D0 (1856)
Local Heap: 0x81BB45D0 - 0x81FB45D0 (4194304)
Stack Area: 0x81FB45D0 - 0x81FB65D0 (8192)
Text (code) segment: 0x81FB65E0 - 0x81FFFFB0 (301520)
Boot area (physical): 0x01B70000 - 0x01BB0000
Relocation Factor: I:E23B65E0 - D:01BB0280
...

(To be continued)