Serial Cable for booting FreeBSD on the BeagleBone Black

[Dr. Rolf Jansen]

Many thanks to everybody, who replied to my message.

In the meantime, my BBBlack arrived. I could not find the Adafruit cable here in Brazil and so I ordered this FTDI to USB converter.

http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-775084107-modulo-conversor-usb-serial-ft232rl-ttl-ftdi232-arduino-_JM <http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-775084107-modulo-conversor-usb-serial-ft232rl-ttl-ftdi232-arduino-_JM>

Its six pins are in the same order as on the BBBlack and I used the USB cable that came with the BBB for connecting the converter and 3 short patch cables for connecting it to the BBBlack. It is working very well.

Best regards

Rolf
 
> Am 30.12.2016 um 20:21 schrieb George Rosamond <george at ceetonetechnology.com>:
> 
> Dr. Rolf Jansen:
>> I ordered my BeagleBone Black, and I will receive it next week.
>> 
>> I read on https://wiki.freebsd.org/FreeBSD/arm/BeagleBoneBlack about booting the BBB with FreeBSD, that I need to:
>> 
>>   "Connect a serial cable such as the FTDI TTL-232R 3.3v
>>    or the Adafruit 4-pin cable"
>> 
>> I am sorry, for needing to ask the obvious:
>> 
>> - connect the serial cable to where and for what purpose?
> 
> There are four pin connectors on the serial cable, black, green, white
> and red.
> 
> There are six pins along one side of the BBBlack with pin 1 labeled "J1"
> 
> pin1 black
> 
> pin4 green
> 
> pin5 white
> 
> and red is unused.
> 
>> 
>> - what is required on the other end for establishing the
>>  facility which the BBB needs for booting?
> 
> cu(1) should work fine.
> 
>> 
>> - none of my machines got a RS232 connector, I even can't
>>  remember when I dropped out the last one that got RS232.
>>  (for sure this was in the last millennium).
>>  Is this really required?
>> 
>> Many thanks in advance for your advices.
> 
> USB to the four pin connectors... I'm sure you'll be fine.
> 
> g
> 
>