Connecting ESP to wifi

The end of the ESP with the wiggly antenna traces points towards the left edge of the board (when reading the TB Blue logo the right way up).

You need to reconnect the wifi every time you join a new access point.

Once you’ve connected, it will automatically connect to that one access point after that.

But it doesn’t remember multiple access points and passwords like phones do. So you need to manually rejoin each new AP every time you move the location of your Next.

Running Terminal

Tim’s terminal program is in the gitlab distro at /Demos/UART/Terminal.bas.

Just load from browser and RUN.

Terminal starts off at 115200 baud.

Testing ESP Connection

Type AT[ENTER]. If it responds OK then the ESP is also defaulting to 115200. This is good. If not, it’s a bit of a mare setting a new default and getting it to stick. Hopefully you won’t need to do this.

If you need help with this, or generally getting your ESP connected, email me at robin.verhagen.guest@gmail.com, or message Robin or Tim on Facebook.

Remember there is no backspace here, as the terminal sends each key as you press it. So if you screw up, just hit enter then retype the command from the beginning.

Checking ESP mode

Type AT+CWMODE?[ENTER].

Response is a number from 1-3:

• 1: Station mode
• 2: SoftAP mode
• 3: SoftAP+Station mode

1 and 3 are ok. If it replied 2, type AT+CWMODE=1[ENTER] to switch to station mode.

Listing Wifi Access Points

Type AT+CWLAP[ENTER] to list the wifi access points.

If the screen fills up hit any key to scroll.

I think it only shows 2.5GHz access points, so 5GHz are a no-no.

Joining Wifi Access Point

Type AT+CWJAP="MyAccessPointName","MyPassword"[ENTER] to connect.

Should say OK if joined.

Confiming Your Wifi Connection

Optionally, type AT+CWJAP?[ENTER] to confirm the AP you are connected to.

Optionally, type AT+CIFSR[ENTER] to confirm your new IP and mac address.

Once connected to the AP, you are safe to power off the Next or unplug the ESP, and you should automatically rejoin the AP on power on.

Running NXtel

Latest stable NXtel clients are on the Releases page. Releases should be suitable for connecting to the Wendy server (nx.nxtel.org:23280).

We use the Test server (nx.nxtel.org:23281) for developing and testing protocol enhancements. If you have difficulties connecting to the Test server, you may wish to try latest Test Build.

Copy the NXtel.nex file to your Next’s SD card.

Launch NXtel from the NextZXOS Browser menu.

Wait for the loading screen then the main menu to appear. If it doesn’t, you may have an old version of the NEXLOAD dot command. If so, download a compatible version and copy it into your SD card’s DOT directory, reboot NextZXOS with F4 (or MF+4), and try again.

From the main menu:

1 for Connect.

2 for NXtel (Wendy). Some of the other servers currently don’t work.

If all goes well you will see the server welcome screen with date and time.

Generally, hit the [ENTER] key to go to the next page.

If you see # referred to onscreen, that means the [ENTER] key.

Some pages have numbered options (e.g. main index has 1-7). Hitting these keys takes you to that page.

If you know the page number, you can go there directly. e.g. *91[ENTER] goes directly to that page.

* key is SymbolShift+B.

To download telesoftware, go to the page after the text description of the software, i.e the one with the short header, such as |A|GbIHOTT.z80|L063|Z050 then hit the download key (Symbol+D).

Telesoftware downloads to the directory you were in when you launched NXtel.

It doesn’t autolaunch yet, you will have to F4 and launch from Browser. HOTT.z80 and HelloWorld.bas should work.

When online, type *00[ENTER] to go back to the previous page.

When online, type Symbol+I to the main index page.

When online, type Symbol+S to toggle reveal/conceal. Engineering test page is a good example.

When online, in the carousel demo or in a sub-menu, the BREAK key takes you offline and back to the main menu.

NXtel servers are stored in the NXtel.cfg file. This is created on launch if it doesn’t exist. After that you can edit it in any text editor.

Have fun!

Originally by Robin Verhagen-Guest