ascii port

[kokenge]

A long time ago, there was a discussion about ascii port support at the client.

At that time the answer was that it would be supported.
So I put some projects on hold.

Is that still in the works?
If so, is there any time frame?

Thanks for the help..
Dan

[votan]

Why not use any of the freely available command line terminal programs for serial communication that can be used by shell$() then?
Here is one that could work.... but there are many other and probably better ones out there....
www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/~albrecht/sw/terminal/index.html
and here is a link with some more tools... (upper section)
www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/

[kokenge]

Thanks for the links.
I'll use anything I can get.
However I don't see where any of these will allow you to interface it with RB.

dan

[votan]

You can either read the echo directly with shell$ and then parse the generated output... or set the tool from the first link to write to a log file and then read that file with RB. Using a log file probably is the best way of using it.... as the tool runs continously, reading the log actually is the only option here....
What do you want to do... use a barcode scanner, cash register or so? Then it should work just fine..... I created something like that some 15 years ago.... using some basic and parsing the output produced by a barcode scanner. Then automatically compared the barcode value with a database to add up prices for the cash register. The barcode scanner was attached to the serial keyboard port... so it was pretty easy to detect when new data were send and to read the data. But doing it through a log file or by processing std-out-info shouldn't be hard either.
There are really many programs out there, that scan serial ports for any activities and log any data.... either dos, linux or windows... so whatever you need.
As the tool logs with selectable seperators, you can regularly and easily parse the log file for new data to process it.
So, for a barcode scanner this would probably be the best setup for being parsed by RB:

serialterm com1 115200 ascii newline no logfile.txt

Then read and parse the file... after that delete entries. Repeat that endlessly...
And as this is all done with a website, you could use a tool like outorefresher to automate reading the log file every 5 seconds or so... Autorefresher will just open a webpage in selectable intervals... so no manual interaction is required to read the log. Or you could reroute the data to the keyboard and add a chr$(13) the the end. This would allow you to use input and directly capture and process the produced data with RB.
Here are some tools that support "serial to keyboard" functionality with adding keystrokes to the end of a line "like return", to make it work with the RB input form.
www.billproduction.com/wedge_keyboard_serial_rs232_barcode_scanner/index.html
www.serialio.com/products/SerialMagic/index.php
Both tools cost a little money... but depending on what you want to do, prices seem ok.... anyway, I'm sure there are some freeware "serial to keyboard" tools out there.... so checking could save some bucks

[kokenge]

Thanks Votan.
I'm looking into some of your suggestions.

Actually the project I'm working on needs it at the server.
I wrote a avionics glass panel for airplanes in LB. I have a LSA Titan-II, with a jabaru 2200 engine. The interface I have is one of the best I've ever used and allows up to 16 analog I/O and 18 digital I/O. I tested it with oil pressure, gas flow, air speed, GPS, compass, gas gauge, water temp, RPM and a few other inputs and outputs. The graphs looks great. I only pulse the gauges about once a second so it's very slow.

The problem is, now days you need to be on the web. I wanted to convert it to RB, and interface it to some of the map stuff on the web so you can follow a map. Also all the airport information is available on the web, so you can display airport information like frequency, and runway layouts.

If you made the on-board computer a server, and gave out passwords, they could watch your airplane from anywhere on earth as you flew it.

I already converted everything to RB, and have been waiting for the Serial I/O. A year ago they said they didn't see why not do the Serial I/O in RB.

I guess it would be a lot easier if I knew if they were still going to do serial I/O in RB. That would be the easiest.

The interface I have waits for requests on what to read and/or output. Because the pulsing of the instruments and turning on lights and doing other analog output, requires a 2 way conversation about what it should read, or how it should read such as auto ranging, or output to the serial port. So it's not simply a read.

I'll see what RB does with Serial I/O first.

And if RB doesn't do Serial I/O, I'll probably take the interface code I did in LB and use it as the interface. But it will require a lot of conservation between RB and LB.

Thanks again..
I'm looking into it.

[Carl Gundel - admin]

Hi,

Well, I'm expecting that serial communications (not general USB) capability will be part of Run BASIC, but it hasn't been tops on my list. My top three things are:

-Improved editing
-Ajax capabilities
-Support for databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server

-Carl

[kokenge]

Very good! Just wondering..

I like you priority list..

Thanks Carl

[votan]

Any hints about when the new version with those features might be available???

[zoomkat]

In the mean time you could make a very simple shell application using freebasic to read from a file made by RB, send the info out the serial port, wait an appropriate amount of time, read the serial input buffer, and put the input data in a file for RB to read and process.

[kokenge]

Just an update on a old post.

Turns out most of the manufactures of boards have recognized the fact that today applications are moving to the web.

They have made their boards web friendly.

And we recognize that opening a Serial port is not too useful because web applications only run for a quick instance. It would simply open it for a second or two and close it.

The easiest way to communicate is with the SHELL command.

I have since moved to the Arduino board. You can simply send commands using the SHELL to do stuff and/or receive results from the board. The board has UART support so you can actually use that to interface with other boards that require SERIAL connections.
For a simple board with about 8 Analog to Digital I/O 10 bit, 16 digital, and UART support, the cost is about $35.

There is a huge user base. Here is info on possible web interfaces.
www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1179780072;start=all

Hope this helps ...
Have a great day..
Dan