Any PPC serial port success stories ?

Hi all

Has anyone got any eVB/eVC success stories of controlling a 'standard'
serial device from a PPC ? (I would like to hook up a magstripe reader)

If yes which model of ppc and did you have to make special cables or can you
use the serial sync cable if the device has one.

Anyone happen to do it with Toshiba e740/HP2210/DellX5 ??

Or if you have to go the CF Serial Card route do these drain the battery ?

Thanks in advance for any advice

Andrew Kennard

Mike
Thu Jul 31 16:33:36 CDT 2003

Andrew Kennard wrote:

> Hi all
>
> Has anyone got any eVB/eVC success stories of controlling a 'standard'
> serial device from a PPC ? (I would like to hook up a magstripe reader)
>
> If yes which model of ppc and did you have to make special cables or can you
> use the serial sync cable if the device has one.
>
> Anyone happen to do it with Toshiba e740/HP2210/DellX5 ??
>
> Or if you have to go the CF Serial Card route do these drain the battery ?
>
> Thanks in advance for any advice
>
> Andrew Kennard
>
>

Haven't sold any serial apps (if thats what you mean by success) but I
did get a proof of concept working with a Dell (kind of) and a serial
sync cable. The trick was supplying some voltage via a battery to one
of the pins to "wake" the hardware up. The problem is that ActiveSync
tries to take over at first. I can't remember the pinout now but I found
it with a quick google search. It worked but not well and I work for a
software company not a hardware one so we dropped the idea. There may
be vendors producing cables that will wake the Axim up now. As far as
the code went, I just modified a sample serial app and compiled it for
the Arm.

Back in the day I did a "successful" cf card serial app on a Jornada and
didn't notice much battery drain (then again battery wasn't a concern
for the project).

Good luck,
Mike

Andrew
Fri Aug 01 05:22:21 CDT 2003

Thanks Mike

success=proof of concept ! ;)

Have a CF serial port card on order which should arrive next week and also
orderd a dell to try one as look good value if buying in quantities

Thanks again

Andrew

"Mike Shubeck" <mike@apeis.com> wrote in message
news:uedMTu6VDHA.2368@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> Andrew Kennard wrote:
>
> > Hi all
> >
> > Has anyone got any eVB/eVC success stories of controlling a 'standard'
> > serial device from a PPC ? (I would like to hook up a magstripe reader)
> >
> > If yes which model of ppc and did you have to make special cables or can
you
> > use the serial sync cable if the device has one.
> >
> > Anyone happen to do it with Toshiba e740/HP2210/DellX5 ??
> >
> > Or if you have to go the CF Serial Card route do these drain the battery
?
> >
> > Thanks in advance for any advice
> >
> > Andrew Kennard
> >
> >
>
> Haven't sold any serial apps (if thats what you mean by success) but I
> did get a proof of concept working with a Dell (kind of) and a serial
> sync cable. The trick was supplying some voltage via a battery to one
> of the pins to "wake" the hardware up. The problem is that ActiveSync
> tries to take over at first. I can't remember the pinout now but I found
> it with a quick google search. It worked but not well and I work for a
> software company not a hardware one so we dropped the idea. There may
> be vendors producing cables that will wake the Axim up now. As far as
> the code went, I just modified a sample serial app and compiled it for
> the Arm.
>
> Back in the day I did a "successful" cf card serial app on a Jornada and
> didn't notice much battery drain (then again battery wasn't a concern
> for the project).
>
> Good luck,
> Mike
>

Dick
Fri Aug 01 10:15:27 CDT 2003

Hi,

I use an iSwipe magstripe reader with my iPAQ -- this is a nice unit
(http://www.semtek.com/products/iswipe.html). I have used a number of
external magstripe readers, using the internal serial port (but some PPC's
do not have an internal port, thus an add-on port would be required).
External readers require a power supply, so...

I have used both eVB and Visual Studio 2003 (Compact Framework) for the
programming tasks.

--
Richard Grier (Microsoft Visual Basic MVP)

See www.hardandsoftware.net for contact information.

Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, 3rd
Edition ISBN 1-890422-27-4 (391 pages) published February 2002.