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Gizmo

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Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5174

Posted: 05:57am 04 Apr 2026

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In my workshop I have a old laptop, Windows 7. Its not online, I mainly used it to drive a 3d printer.

I wanted to test a PicoMite based motor controller in the workshop, so fired up the old laptop. It found the serial port of the PicoMite, connected, but there's something not right. If I type, its been echoed back from the picomite, but thats all it does. CRTL C does nothing, there's no > prompt, even ENTER seams to do nothing, unless I set it up as CR & LF. If I turn on local echo, I get double characters, so this means the PicoMite is definitely returning characters as I type them. Its basically just returning whatever I type, nothing more.

If I plug it into my Win10 PC back in the office, works perfectly. CRTL C, I have a promt, edit works.

Updated Teraterm on the old laptop, no difference, checked terminal emulation VT100.

Any suggestions?

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ

Bryan1

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Joined: 22/02/2006
Location: Australia
Posts: 1803

Posted: 06:14am 04 Apr 2026

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Gizmo try installing MMEdit and see if MCCC can connect to it as when I was on win7 thats how I connected to it.

Cheers Bryan

TassyJim

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Joined: 07/08/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 6504

Posted: 06:57am 04 Apr 2026

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What driver are you using.
Getting characters echoed back is strange.
I thought that W7 needs some work to get it running. But I could be wring with that.
Also, the early picomites need DTR asserted. Not sure if that is still the case.

Jim

VK7JH
MMedit

JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4293

Posted: 07:27am 04 Apr 2026

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Probably worth saying exactly which Picomite firmware you're using.

And maybe what hardware (if any) between PC & Picomite. A USB something I guess.

It's almost as if Rx&Tx are shorted together.

John

Gizmo

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Joined: 05/06/2004
Location: Australia
Posts: 5174

Posted: 08:54am 04 Apr 2026

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OK tried MMEdit, same response. Then it clicked, this laptop has a internal modem, guess what port I was connecting to.

OK, digging deeper. When I plug it in, I do see a quick message on the laptop screen about Pi device detected, but no com port is added. I did a bit of a search for a Pi Pico serial driver but they seam very complicated with lots of config file editing, think I'm going up the wrong path.

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now.
JAQ

JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4293

Posted: 09:44am 04 Apr 2026

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Are you using a USB to serial device?

If so, try Zadig to force W7 to use the right driver.

If not using a USB to serial, good time to do so.

John

Frank N. Furter
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Joined: 28/05/2012
Location: Germany
Posts: 1066

Posted: 10:58am 04 Apr 2026

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You should try the ZADIG driver: https://zadig.akeo.ie/

Frank

mozzie
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Joined: 15/06/2020
Location: Australia
Posts: 249

Posted: 04:15pm 04 Apr 2026

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G'day Gizmo,
I still use many WIN7 and WINXP machines here, please see attached ZIP folder that contains the modified .inf files for the Pico and Pico2 that I use for these.

Driver_Atmel_USB_CDC_Virtual_COM_v.6.0.0.0.zip

Hope this helps and apologies to the original author "Jim", I have no idea where I got this from so cannot pass on my thanks.

Regards,
Lyle.

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