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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 con-
verters 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.0
.
At the start of each code example, a sidehead indicates the programming lan-
guage used:Example applications are available for free download from http://www.Lvr.com. This
is also the place to find updates, corrections, and other links to information and
tools for serial-port applications.
VB Visual Basic .NET Microsoft
VC# Visual C# .NET Microsoft
PBP PICBASIC PRO microEngineering Labs, Inc.
C18 MPLAB C18 compiler Microchip Technology Inc.