12 Apr
2005
12 Apr
'05
2:55 p.m.
Someday I'll pick up a "datascope" (aka
serial protocol analyzer) cheap. I
did a lot of serial communications programming in a prior life, and
absolutely lived with a datascope. Not sure of the brand, but I remember is
was blue. No keyboard in the real sense, but a data entry pad on the front.
It was the most incredibly useful thing... you could program it to watch for
a particular sequence of ascii characters, then start capturing data. One
button would flip the display between ascii/ebcdic, hex, binary.. and it had
a dual display mode where it showed transmit on top of the line and receive
on the bottom of the line. It was a godsend. It had a breakout box built
into it, could buffer to floppy, etc. It could also do sync & async.
I haev a Tekky 835 which does most of what you describe. It only has a
single-line display, but as you scroll through the captured text, a
status LED shows whether the character came from the DTE or DCE. This
device can also simulate a DCE or DTE, so you can use it for testing
serial peripherals on their own.
I also have a crazy decvice called a 'Ferret'. It's built into an ABS
case, a bit like one of those attache' cases. It combines the functions
of a breakout box, protocol analyser (but only for async data I think),
RS232 - current loop converter (and you can have different baud rates on
the 2 sides!), RS232 - centronics converter (I think it does dataproducts
parallel too), perallel printer tester (in other words you can send
messages to a Centronics printer), RS232 printer (there's a little
built-in strip printer, like the one in an Epson HX20), EPROM programmer
(!), you can even download and run programs on the built-in Z80
processor. There;'s even a cassstte interface to save the contents of
user memory. I really must dig it out and get it going...
-tony