RS232 Help

[fatab9]

Although I do not have the utmost knowledge regarding the issue at hand, I do posses an extreme passion to learn about this subject seeing as it will help my schooling career greatly. I'm new to this site as you can see and do not even know if I am in the correct area for this question(s) but will go ahead and post here neways.

First of all, I have very limited knowledge of the RS232 serial port and not only would like to connect that to a simple circuit I am going to create but also would like Fruity Loops Stuido(Music Software) to register the input from my circuit and use it to apply music to the off inputs. The off inputs will be supplied by the circuit register when a light sensor is blocked and send the off signal to the computer which is then read by FL Studio which then applies a tone to it. I know I could hook a speaker up to my circuit but I want cmplex music to result. I know this is a wierd request but its for a project I need to do and any help is appreciated.

[Paul Komski]

Hi and Welcome.

Serial Coms go way back and their external ports are disappearing from many modern PCs. If absent, but still needed they can be supplied on expansion cards.

Some believe the DB9 subminature ports to be synonymous with RS-232 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-232) but in fact DB25 is older and one can convert between the two (http://www.lammertbies.nl/comm/cable/RS-232.html).

Though widely used for dial-up and PC-to-PC modems they have a wide range of other applications. As few as two or three pins is all that is required for the simplest of communications.

The software you are using will probably take care of all the details but it is possible to program for both DOS (using QBasic) and for Windows (using VB and Win32 APIs); it may be easier with .NET or C++ but I am not familiar with them. Such programming stipulates things like the "baud" rates and whether the UART chip is to be readied to send or receive.

I was on top of all of this just over a year ago but have already gone rusty through lack of use.

Good Luck.

[kiosk]

RS232 is awesome. While you're at it, you might as well try connecting a 1960s Teletype terminal (one of those that came with an integrated paper tape puncher on their left side) to a brand new computer, and actually getting it to work properly. I've always had a thing for punched cards and tapes, so excuse me for getting offtopic here. :)

[Paul Komski]

so excuse me for getting offtopic here
I don't think its offtopic at all. It just goes to exemplify the wide variety of serial port hardware that can communicate with a computer and which have been doing so for a very long time.

[123456]

Older mice and keyboards connected via serial port.