Commodore CASSIOPEI, User Manual

Page: 13 / 76

There are 3 modes in which this setting can be set: “disabled”, “enabled” and “enabled, show QR”.
When the setting “enabled, show QR” is selected, the OLED screen will show a QR-code instead of
the settings. This allows the user to quickly scan this code and connect to the cassiopei. This saves
the user the trouble of reading the IP-address from the tiny screen and typing it in. Unfortunately,
because the OLED screen is very small, it is difficult to capture the QR-code for some models of
mobile phone camera's. However, there are very cheap (plastic) clip-on lenses available (in
discount stores and on the internet. For approx 2 Euros (2 dollars) you can buy these macro
photography lenses for your phone. But a simple 5x magnifier lense should do the trick just as well.
The QR code, holding the IP-address of the Cassiopei, is just
another feature that might be handy for some people, but
most likely not for all. The QR-code disappears the moment
you press the sett. button on the front panel of the Cassiopei
or when you load something, just like the normal display
would. The CBM voltage is also shown in the top-right
corner of the display, allowing the user to monitor the
behaviour of the power supply. More info about that further
on in the manual.
2.2 NTP functionality (mostly intended for GEOS)
NTP stands for Network Time Protocol and an NTP server is a website where you can retrieve the
current time. The Cassiopei is able to connect to such an NTP server and therefore knows the exact
time. And when you use the menu program (by pressing the MENU button after giving the LOAD
command) the TI and TI$ clock values will be set to the value of the current time (if you have NTP
and WIFI enabled). So if you have a program for your CBM that requires the current time in TI or
TI$, you don't need to set these values manually, because the Cassiopei will set it for you (as long
as you use the menu program to load your program). If you would load your program directly (by
pressing the “PLAY” button after giving the LOAD command) then the menu program isn't started
and TI and TI$ aren't changed. However… because almost no computer had a realtime clock,
software that did require the current time, would ask the time when started, so although your TI and
TI$ values are already correct, the program you want to use it for most likely still requires you to
type it in. Now that not very useful, so if this would be the case, you can always alter that program
(if it is a BASIC program) yourself. Unfortunately, not much programs care about the exact time.
Even the special time string variable TI$ in Commodore's BASIC (just type PRINT TI or PRINT
TI$ to see it), isn't used by any serious applications.
So you might think that some NTP functionality isn't really useful. And you are probably right... in
fact depending on the speed of your network and the NTP server availability, it may even slow
things down. Because network connection first needs to be made then time needs to be retrieved
and this happens every time you reset/reboot your system. Therefore, unless you really want to use
it, it is best to disable this option.
There is however one very serious application that does benefit from an accurate clock (although it
doesn't use TI or TI$ at all), is GEOS. So if you are serious GEOS user, then this NTP function
might be useful to you. Just use GEOS are you are used to, but make sure that the Cassiopei is
plugged in and configured for NTP use. This is how it works:
On power-up or after a reset, the Cassiopei will connect to the wifi network and via that network it
will visit the specified NTP server. From there it get's the current time and uses it to set it's own
internal clock and synchronizes that clock automatically approximately every hour. In the mean
time you have started GEOS, the drives spins as the Cassiopei does it work. After a small minute of
2019-10-27 Page 13 of 76 CASSIOPEI v2.0
5.00V
192.168.002.002