Back to the Book Store

This book explores wide and varied territory, including hardware and software; ports in PCs and in embedded systems; and RS-232, RS-485, and wireless interfaces. You don’t need to read the book straight through. If you’re interested in a particular topic, you can skip right to it.

The first chapters focus on hardware and interfacing. Chapters 1 and 2 are an introduction to asynchronous serial communications. Chapter 3 discusses serial ports in PCs, and chapters 4–8 are a guide to interfacing using RS-232, RS-485, and wireless technologies.

The next chapters are a guide to programming. Chapters 9 and 10 show how to program serial ports on PCs using Visual Basic .NET and Visual C# .NET. Chapter 11 shows how to program serial ports for embedded systems with examples for microEngineering Labs' PICBASIC PRO compiler and Microchip Technology's MPLAB C18 C compiler.

Chapters 12 and 13 focus on hardware and programming for RS-485 serial networks.

Chapters 14–16 explain how to implement USB virtual COM ports using special-purpose and generic USB controllers.

Contents

Introduction
Acknowledgments
1 Options and Choices
2 Formats and Protocols
3 COM Ports on PCs
4 Inside RS-232
5 Designing RS-232 Links
6 Inside RS-485
7 Designing RS-485 Links and Networks
8 Going Wireless
9 Using .NET’s SerialPort Class
10 Managing Ports and Transfers in .NET
11 Ports for Embedded Systems
12 Network Programming
13 An RS-485 Network
14 Inside USB
15 Using Special-function USB Controllers
16 Using Generic USB Controllers

What’s New in the Second Edition

Much has happened in the world of computing since the first edition of this book was released. For this second edition, I’ve revised and updated the contents from start to finish.

One addition is example code in C/C# as well as Basic. This book includes code examples for PCs and for embedded systems (microcontrollers).

Also new in the Second Edition are these topics:

Designing and programming USB virtual COM ports.
Using wireless technologies to transmit serial data.
Accessing serial ports over Ethernet or Wi-Fi networks.
Transferring any kind of text data using Unicode encoding.

Who Should Read this Book?

Whether your interest is hardware or software and whether you work with PCs, embedded systems, or both, you’ll find useful guidance in this book.

Programmers will learn how to communicate via serial ports, including USB virtual COM ports, in PCs and embedded systems. The example code for PCs and microcontrollers in Basic and C/C# provides a quick start for a variety of applications.

Circuit designers will find designs for a variety of applications including converters that translate between RS-232, RS-485, and 3V/5V logic. Designs with fail-safe features, high noise immunity, and low power consumption are included.

Hobbyists and experimenters will find inspiration for projects.

Teachers and students can learn about serial ports and use the examples in this book to demonstrate concepts.

This book assumes you have a basic knowledge of electronics and either Basic/Visual Basic or C/C# programming. I assume no previous knowledge or experience with serial-port hardware or programming.

Code for PCs and PIC microcontrollers.

PC

Terminal application

COM_Port_Terminal for Visual Basic .NET. Use any version of Visual Basic 2005 .NET including the free Express edition. Version 1.1. Updated Feb. 24, 2007.

COM_Port_Terminal for Visual C# .NET. Use any version of Visual C# .NET including the free Express edition. Version 1.1. Updated Feb. 24, 2007.

Microchip PIC Microcontroller (PIC18F4520)

Basic serial communications

Basic (PICBASIC PRO)
C (Microchip C18)

RS-485 network

Basic (PICBASIC PRO)
C (Microchip C18)

| Contact Information |