I've got many projects that interface through the old easy combination of a MAX232 device and Hyperterm (PC) or ZTerm (mac) for serial info display.
Is there a similar dynamic duo for a USB interface? ie what's the basic, low-cost easy to interface LSI device to do a USB interface, and is there such a thing as a simple terminal program to show me serial data without having to code anything - aka HypertermUSB?
-Ross
The most popular appears to be FTDI's chip. (
Robert
have a look at:
Don...
If you want the quick easy solution, get a USB-to-RS232 adapter. I'm a big fan of serialio.com... I bought a RS232-to-USB adapter off of Ebay and it was crap, but serialio's works great. It let me use the Java SerialPort class to interface to my microcontroller through my laptop's USB port without changing any code.
To show serial data being transmitted in a presentation recently I used a free trial version of the program called "Advanced Serial Port Monitor", just do a search on Google for it. It lets you run your programs normally while it runs in "spy mode" and shows what's passing through the port. This only works for serial ports but it works for USB if you use serial-to-USB adapter.
-- MT
To reply directly please remove all 5 y's from my address.
The FTDIchip.com devices (implemented at dlpdesign.com) provide their USB interface to the Windows O/S via virtual comm port and via DLL function calls. The virtual comm port is an easy way to go. You might consider RealTerm (free) if you need hex data instead of just ascii, (but it is limited to port 1-4).
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