Hello,

I need some help!

I just got a WDC W65C816SXB Development Board and I would like to directly connect it to my PC using USB to run Andrew Jacobs' w65c816sxb-hacker.

The README says "You will need a USB Serial adapter (like one of the cheap PL2303 modules with jumper wires sold on eBay) to establish a connection."

When I went to eBay and searched for "PL2303 modules" I found

USB To RS232 TTL UART PL2303HX Converter USB to COM Arduino Cable Adapter Module
https://www.ebay.com/itm/222528693981

or something like

PL2303TA USB to TTL RS232 COM UART Module Serial Cable Adapter for Arduino
https://www.ebay.com/itm/224493165773

or do I need something more like this

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LODGRV8

Also, do I need to put any resisters or capacitors or can I just directly connect them to the pins.

Thanks in advance!

I haven't played with the W65C816SXB board myself, but here goes...

It looks like the W65C816SXB J4 serial port is just direct connections to the 6551 ACIA chip, so it's all TTL voltage levels, like Arduino.

The serial adapters with TTL level serial connections should work.
I think the PL2303TA is a newer version than the PL2303HX.

On Prolific PL2303: there are some problems with chip versions & associated drivers - search "prolific pl2303 code 10" for details.
The EBay links you listed say there aren't drivers available for Windows 8 & up - is this a problem for you?

thanks

i did notice that one has to use an earlier version of the driver and that those older drivers will work just fine with windows 10/11.

You can define set USE_FIFO to 1 in w65c816sxb.asm:39. After rebuilding and uploading, the onboard
USB FIFO will be used for the serial interface of the sxb-hacker program instead of the ACIA.

The USB FIFO uses a FT245 and has large send and receive buffers.
It is much faster and more reliable than the ACIA.

The ACIA is much more trad though!