Serial Device Tester

The Serial Device Test Utility is designed to assist in analyzing the communicationbetween a PC and a device connected over the serial port. The application has a number of features to make this process relatively easy. Some of the features that are included are a fully configurable COM port interface, the ability to program constant wrappers (header/footer) around the serial port data, the ability to send data using either ASCII text, decimal values for each byt, or hexadecimal values for each byte, inbound data is decoded into both standard ASCII text and hexadecimal byte values, and the ability to log the data to a file in either HTML or plain text format.


The ASCII window for the inbound data has modified the data slightly -- when there is a carriage return or line feed in the data string, those values have been replaced with a "." in order to keep the ASCII window in sync with the Hex window. This utility has been very useful in debugging communications between remote devices and the computer when for whatever reason the actual data being sent does not agree with the documentation or the documentationis unclear on the exact byte sequence being sent or received. One of the most common areas of confusion that this will clear up immediately is what the end of a line truly is -- whether or not it is a carraige return, a line feed, or both (and if both what order they are actually sent).

Features that are currently under development for the next couple of releases include: The ability to pre-program a variety of commonly used commands that will be sent upoun selection, the ability to code automatic responses which wil be useful in situations where Acks or an equivalent response are required, inclusion of CRC and checksum capabilities, file transfer capabilites, and others still to be determined.

Click here to download Serial Device Tester