With the release of Virtual PC 3.0 by Connectix last week, I figured it would now be possible for me to use my machine at home (a Mac) to synchronize my Empeg - since VPC3.0 has USB support, theoretically, it should be able to work. However, when I tried this today, the following happened:

- The Emplode software installed without incident.
- When I plugged in the Empeg, it was recognized by Windows as an "empeg-car"
- So far, so good, right? But then, when I launched Emplode, it said "Your empeg-car is connected correctly", and then hung on the "synchronising" dialog box.

Anybody have any idea what could be done to make this work? Since the Virtual PC emulates very generic hardware, and since the unit certainly _is_ visible on the USB (as Windows saw it), it seems to me like it should work; so what am I missing? :)

Thanks...

-Dan


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Daniel M. Zimmerman
Caltech Computer Science
[email protected]

Dan,

Did you get anywhere on this???

I have just received the fabled invitation to order email and was hoping I could do just what you tried. My PB G3 is the only machine I have with USB and I'd rather not have to use serial.

With any luck I'll be able to try it out over the weekend and report back.
I spent all last night updating to VPC 3.0 and installing Win 98 - all I need now is *my* empeg!

Phil

Unfortunately, no, I still haven't had any luck with this. Though I have, several times, successfully updated the firmware of my Empeg using the Virtual PC...

I think it will probably require an update to Virtual PC for it to work; it doesn't even want to synchronize over serial, despite being able to update successfully...

-Dan

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Daniel M. Zimmerman
Caltech Computer Science
[email protected]

Dan,
This is a bug somewhere in the USB driver for VPC 3.0. I have been working with an individual over at Connectix to get this to work properly, and currently our brick wall is getting our hands on an expensive USB chief to analyze the problem. Currently you can use the serial port on the Mac with VPC to download music. I've taken the din8 - db9 connecter from my Palm Pilot cradle and in the preferences dialog in VPC, map the modem port to COM1 and be sure to check the preference "non-modem device". I have successfully downloaded the firmware upgrades and sync'd the unit.

That's cool if you have a serial port, but I don't think the newer macs have a regular serial port, do they?

(I admittedly haven't looked too hard at the back of my G4 to find one, because serial sucks compared to using my PC's USB... sad, though, that the only reason my Compaq still has windows on it and not linux is the ability to use emplode).

I suspect VPC3.0 will support USB<>serial adaptors seamlessly...

Hugo

Nope. USB<>serial adaptors + VPC 3.0 do not work. It has to be a real serial port.