How to transfer files without PsiWin

The utility provided for transferring files between a PC and your Psion (either PsiWin or Ericsson Epoc Connect) is an excellent tool for most situations. However, it does insist on being installed on the host PC before you can use it. There are times when you will not want to have to go to the trouble of installing PsiWin, or maybe the PC owner simply won't allow it.

There is, however, an alternative: RCOM. Before PsiWin was available RCOM was the only means by which files could be transferred between machines. It also allows backups to be performed along with direct Psion to PC printing. It is slower than PsiWin, operating at a baud rate of 19200 rather than the more normal 115200, and it is more difficult to operate, being rather like a DOS session. But it is small (it will fit on a floppy disk), functionally rich and doesn't require any installation. When travelling I carry only my PsiWIn cable and a copy of RCOM on disk.

In use it is very similar to a DOS session using a set of commands to carry out tasks, such as copying files from one machine to another. So, for example, to copy the file "TasMan.sis" from the PC to your Psion you would enter: copy c:\tasman.sis x:\. Here x:\ represents the C drive on the Psion.

Configuration of RCOM is controlled by an ini file which holds settings for items such as which COM port to use, the connection rate (19200 is the maximum) and the drive names to assign to the Psion - the one here has allocated X:, Y: and Z: for the C, D and E Psion drives.

Other useful resources:

Download RCOM here

Problems that may be encountered running RCOM under Windows

The full RCOM ini file