Hello,
I’m attempting to write a couple of applications that need to communicate with external hardware via a serial port (a UPS in this case, since the packaged software doesn’t have the feature set I want).
So far, the only method for talking over a serial port is the MSComm ActiveX control, and I can’t seem to get it to work. At the most basic level, a UPS is supposed to maintain +5V on one pin of the serial port as long as utility power is active (the Windows NT UPS service depends on this). My problem is figuring out how to read this voltage, since MSComm doesn’t acknowledge any signal when I open the port.
If code is provided, I would prefer a solution in Basic (any version), but C, C++, and Java source is also acceptable.
Thanks,
Ben
P.S. If someone knows of a good reference for hardware communications, I would appreciate it. I would prefer something roughly 50% theory / 50% technical & code, too many books / documents are 90% theory (white papers) or 90% technical & code (RFCs).
