ESP 8266 webcontroller and Jornada 720

Recently I have dusted off my ignored Jornada 720 , charged it up and put it to use to control a hot water recirculator in my office. I designed a simple webpage in HTML with fonts and borders and background colors and several timed on control buttons...and all easily rendered by the old Jornada IE web browser. This was uploaded to the ESP8266 microcontroller (using the arduino Ide ...specifically I overwrote the IoT firmware) at the heart of those cheap Sonoff switches and set it up as an access point at 192.168.4.1 which the Jornada aironet cards easily connects to. Although presently it is an unsecured AP, I am working on implementing WEP if possible with the esp8266. It makes a good dedicated control station, customisable, and stable and giving a new life to these well made hpc's.??

Hi Joval,

An interesting project. Perhaps I could encourage you to document what you did. It would be nice if others could be empowered to follow you into this?

When I saw this topic I though it was related to something else, to use the ESP8266 as a WiFi card for the Jornada 720. I've used the ESP8266 and its variants in many many projects. In one of them, I started to wonder what would it take to create a firmware for the ESP8266 that can emulate an old Hayes AT modem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayes_command_set). WinCE supports Hayes AT commands natively, which means that making a serial connection between an ESP8266 and the Jornada 720 can enable it to connect to any wireless network, even those using WPA2 keys. I'm not very familiar with AT commands but I would be willing to try that if I can find someone else to help me. In the end, we could create a product in the form factor of a PCMCIA card that has an embedded ESP8266 to do all the magic.

I had the same idea, ntware, and it would absolutely be possible!
However, implementing the Hayes protocol is the easy part. It's just a few commands to parse, what's complicated is emulating an ISP, since that is of course what a Jornada would dial up to to connect to the internet.
There are PPP servers available for linux, so there are 2 options:

1. Implement the PPP part on the ESP. I can't say how viable that is, I don't know much about PPP
2. Route the whole traffic to a linux box where the ppp server runs

In any case, a good start would be building a proof-of-concept Hayes implementation for the ESP8266. If you'd be up to it, we could set up a GitHub project for that.

Great! I’m totally up for experimenting with that. Good news is that we might not even have to create our repository, as it already exists

A quick google search brought me to this: https://github.com/ep00ch/esp32-at-ppp

Some more reference material:
http://lwip.100.n7.nabble.com/ESP8266-as-WiFi-to-PPP-Bridge-td28522...
http://geekinfo.net/article.php?story=20190203181806121
https://esp32.com/viewtopic.php?t=4524

This is even better as the ppp server is implemented inside the esp, so no external Linux box required. I’ll order an esp32 and start experimenting with it

I'm not sure I understand all you are talking about but I'm wondering if using the infrared port wouldn't make for an easier serial connection to the ESP32, etc. than the phone modem.

WEP is not secure, true. But I am thinking more of a home ESP8266 web controller Without internet connectivity...just using the jornada as a dedicated web contoller client to turn on lights for a certain amount of time or open the window blinds during daylight hours. Security isn't much of a concern for those activities (the garage door would be a different case of course) and besides the ESP8266 wifi power can be adjusted to low levels so it's not blasting out to the whole neighborhood and has a circumspect radius.

Random Nerds Tutorials (google it) has detailed instructions on how to access the firmware interface and overwrite/hack the cheap sonoff wifi switches which contain an ESP8266. One shows how to hook up the (also cheap) usb to uart module to program the sonoff. (Alternatively, a ESP8266 D1 mini or others like it, can plug into any computer and be programmed directly as it has its own usb to uart built in...but then you need to add a relay to switch and a case, power supply, etc. )

Random Nerds Tutuorials also shows you how to setup the Arduino IDE and upload a simple Web Controller program with explanations of how it works, using HTML to design appearance, buttons, etc. The jornada has screen limitations and html allows you to customize the look...it renders HTML4 very well.

Modifications are necessary to set it up as an AP , access point, and you can set your own IP without the default WPA2 encryption...by replacing "password" with "NULL" on webserver.begin command.

In a simplistic way, the outdated Pocket internet explorer functions as a "pseudo-virtual machine" within the WinCE OS, with HTML4 and its limited javascript serving as a "pseudo-OS," greatly extending the functionality. Furhermore, what you create can be used on anything that has a browser.

And that folks, is what I'm all about ...making it easy and useful...

Joval, sorry for stealing your post. I got what you did, which is basically using the Jornada as a tiny HMI (Human-Machine Interface). You might wanna check ScadaBR, an open source web-based HMI tool. You will have to run it in a computer somewhere, but I believe that the Jornada’s PIE will be able to render the web-based interface just fine.

What we were talking about was to actually use an ESP8266 or ESP32 as a WiFi card for the Jornada

ntware,
A couple of years ago, I was thinking that the J720 could be paired with a Raspberry PI board to provide better WiFi connectivity and access to a more modern internet browser. At the time, my thoughts didn't generate any response (see https://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=18302&po...).

I don't know how feasible the idea would be... or, how similar this might be to your ESP8266 / ESP32 ideas. At the present time, I personally would not be jumping into such a project. But back then, I might have.

Dave,

I don't recall seeing your original thread. IMHO PPP is a better option than WiFi. It's lighter weight, is more secure and in order to do it with WiFi you would need two NICs on the pi or at the very least a MMIO capable adapter.

If the ESP8266 package could be made physically small enough to fit in the PCMCIA slot and a suitable control program exist on CE. It would be quite something!

No problem there, the esp8266 boards are not much bigger than an inch square with built in power supply 5v and a few millimeters thick with rf shield, IMO. esp32 is a bit bigger, the chips themselves are only about 5mm in size.

So, yes, if ntware above can create an interface...that fits in a pcmcia or uses the usb port...that would be fantastico!

C:amie, sorry, but I have no idea what all those acronyms are referring to...can you point me to a source???

Edited by joval 2019-06-03 3:17 PM

PPP = Point to Point Protocol, something used widely in the 90s to connect people to the internet using dial-up. The user would make use of PPP to connect to an ISP (Internet Service Provider) which acts as a bridge between the dial-up client and the internet.

WiFi is, well... WiFi! =) I don't think you need help with this acronym, right!

NIC = Network Interface Card. An adapter used to connect your device to a network.

MMIO = Memory Mapped IO, which is a way to access devices connected on the bus. I don't know why C:Amie suggested this for the Pi, I will let him explain this one

Back to the subject, I think it is possible to emulate a whole ISP + PPP on the tiny ESP32. Due to memory constraints, I don't know how feasible it is on the ESP8266 though. Anyone here has knowledge on the PCMCIA bus? Do we have a serial connection on that too? Otherwise, we will also have to emulate a PCMCIA -> Serial card, which makes things a bit more complex... I wonder if there is an IC that already makes this.

I may have just found a PCMCIA -> UART chip: https://www.digchip.com/datasheets/parts/datasheet/922/OX16CF950-pdf...

Perhaps we should start by just using the built in serial port in the Jornada, and then move to an integrated solution using this chip and the ESP32 on the same board.

Thank you all for bringing me somewhat up to speed. (My wheels are still spinning much slower than the rest of you.)
The concept of improved connectivity for the J720 via a plug in PCMCIA card is intriguing.

This would address a major shortfall of the J720. But another is lack of a modern internet browser (with up to date SSL and JavaScript capabilities). Would a modern browser be included in an ESP 32 project?

Ntware...have you seen this, is it of any help? https://www.instructables.com/id/Serial-Port-Over-WiFi/

Oops, keyboard malfunction on my part. It was supposed to be MIMO: Multiple-Input / Multiple-Output. More than one transceiver on the chip to allow it to perform dull duplex operations and then latterly double+ the bandwidth or do multiple separate things at the same time. For example Miracast requires MIMO - one WiFi link to the TV, another to the LAN.

Sorting the web browser isn't as simple a proposition. Some sort of proxy solution to perform the SSL decode would be ropey, but I suppose possible. Having it pre-parse JavaScript though. Not going to happen. Some sort of VNC window to a webkit UI running through X11? That would be a lot of low level programming. As has been said. By the time you have implemented all of this, it is going to be setting fire to the PC Card slot and the battery life will be measurable in minutes!