Understanding Basics

Hi All,

I am basically an application developer and i am new to driver world.
I am tasked to develop an application which talks to an API. This API
will inturn talk to USB-Serial driver.
I have the binaries of API and driver available with me.

I have few questions which may be basics to everyone this group. I am
excited to know the internals of what the API and driver does.

1) The application which i need to develop uses the API to talk to USB-
Serial. I want to know to which end my application will initiate the
calls. Is it the serial end or USB end? My assumption is my app will
talk to serial end which inturn converts the serial requests to USB.

2) If the answer for above question is serial interface first, then I
guess i need to configure the serial port settings i.e. baud rate
etc.. and write some data to serial interface in my app.

3) How can i test the USB-serial data transfer? My assumption is at
one end i use hyperterminal or similiar application and at other end i
have an application which has handle to USB device and waits for the
data. If the data matches it should be correct.

These questions may sound pretty easier to all of you, but help me to
understand the architecture.

Thank You.

Regards,
Tim

AntonBassov
Tue Mar 13 11:10:28 CDT 2007

I am afraid that the only ones who can answer your questions are API/driver
developers - everything depends on how they handled things. If I got it
right, the very idea of API in your case is insulating your app from knowing
anything about the driver - your app should just make API calls, and API will
deal with a driver that deals with the actual IO stuff behind the scenes....


Anton Bassov

"tfedricks@gmail.com" wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I am basically an application developer and i am new to driver world.
> I am tasked to develop an application which talks to an API. This API
> will inturn talk to USB-Serial driver.
> I have the binaries of API and driver available with me.
>
> I have few questions which may be basics to everyone this group. I am
> excited to know the internals of what the API and driver does.
>
> 1) The application which i need to develop uses the API to talk to USB-
> Serial. I want to know to which end my application will initiate the
> calls. Is it the serial end or USB end? My assumption is my app will
> talk to serial end which inturn converts the serial requests to USB.
>
> 2) If the answer for above question is serial interface first, then I
> guess i need to configure the serial port settings i.e. baud rate
> etc.. and write some data to serial interface in my app.
>
> 3) How can i test the USB-serial data transfer? My assumption is at
> one end i use hyperterminal or similiar application and at other end i
> have an application which has handle to USB device and waits for the
> data. If the data matches it should be correct.
>
> These questions may sound pretty easier to all of you, but help me to
> understand the architecture.
>
> Thank You.
>
> Regards,
> Tim
>
>

tfedricks
Tue Mar 13 23:58:01 CDT 2007

On Mar 13, 9:10 pm, Anton Bassov
<AntonBas...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> I am afraid that the only ones who can answer your questions are API/driver
> developers - everything depends on how they handled things. If I got it
> right, the very idea of API in your case is insulating your app from knowing
> anything about the driver - your app should just make API calls, and API will
> deal with a driver that deals with the actual IO stuff behind the scenes....
>
> Anton Bassov
>
>
>
> "tfedri...@gmail.com" wrote:
> > Hi All,
>
> > I am basically an application developer and i am new to driver world.
> > I am tasked to develop an application which talks to an API. This API
> > will inturn talk to USB-Serial driver.
> > I have the binaries of API and driver available with me.
>
> > I have few questions which may be basics to everyone this group. I am
> > excited to know the internals of what the API and driver does.
>
> > 1) The application which i need to develop uses the API to talk to USB-
> > Serial. I want to know to which end my application will initiate the
> > calls. Is it the serial end or USB end? My assumption is my app will
> > talk to serial end which inturn converts the serial requests to USB.
>
> > 2) If the answer for above question is serial interface first, then I
> > guess i need to configure the serial port settings i.e. baud rate
> > etc.. and write some data to serial interface in my app.
>
> > 3) How can i test the USB-serial data transfer? My assumption is at
> > one end i use hyperterminal or similiar application and at other end i
> > have an application which has handle to USB device and waits for the
> > data. If the data matches it should be correct.
>
> > These questions may sound pretty easier to all of you, but help me to
> > understand the architecture.
>
> > Thank You.
>
> > Regards,
> > Tim- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Thanks for the reply. I understand the driver developer could help me
understand it better, but the driver is provided by the hardware
vendor and more over i donot have the source with me. So it may not be
possible to get anything from the vendor. I am comfortable with the
app and i have a understanding of what calls i need to make with the
API.

But still i want the know data flow from App to Driver. It may not be
exactly how my driver implements.

Thank you.

Regards,
Tim