I frequently find myself whipping out my Newton MessagePad 2100, it’s mini-DIN-8-to-Interconnect dongle, and DB-9-to-mini-DIN-8 cable for quick administration of various routers, firewalls, and switches via their console ports using the excellent PT100 terminal emulation software. Last night I was faced with an interesting new hurdle while using this toolset to configure a new-to-me Intel Express 530T switch: how does one use keys that don’t exist on the Newton’s software keyboard—such as ctrl, esc, and the up/down arrows—without plugging in a Newton keyboard? Most of the devices I have dealt with have been strictly command line interfaces so I had not yet run into this issue.

I don’t currently own a Newton keyboard, but even if I did I would have been stuck needing to buy an internal serial port module such as the now-discontinued SER-001. That wouldn’t have been a quick solution. There might be some software that hacks the Newton OS’s software keyboard to add the additional keys, but how much time would I have spent trying to find it and probably failing?

However, the Newton’s built-in Dock¹ application offers a “Keyboard” mode wherein a desktop/laptop computer’s keyboard can be used to type on the Newton’s screen. I’ve got a Mac Color Classic that I could have set up to do this, but still would have required a that second serial port.

Fortunately, my Newton is fully equipped with a TCP/IP stack, WiFi drivers, a Melco/Buffalo WLI-PCM-L11GP 802.11b WiFi card, and the Dock TCP/IP extension for use with Simon Bell’s excellent NCX. By connecting my Newton to NCX on my MacBook Pro via WiFi I was able to simply click “Use keyboard²“ and start typing into PT100 which was running the terminal session to my new Express 530T switch.

Here you can see it all up and running on my livingroom floor during said configuration process:

While this was a quick and easy solution for me it’s really because I had already put all the work into getting it wireless. The Mac OS X side is easy (just download and run NCX), but it takes quite a bit more configuration to get the Newton side of things up and running. At this point, I’ll step aside and point those who might want to do this sort of thing in the direction of WikiWikiNewt’s Ethernet & WiFi pages as well as Mark Hoekstra’s excellent article on getting your eMate wireless (after all, he knows that the is an excellent terminal).

¹ Not to be mistaken with the button bar which looks like Mac OS X’s Dock.

² Currently it’s advised to click “Use Keyboard” from within NCX on Mac OS X as opposed to “Keyboard” in the Dock application on the Newton as you’ll get a connection error if you do the latter.