Concepts

This section describes the concepts of the Serial Communications Server.

The Serial Communications Server provides a virtualisation layer over the serial device drivers. This virtualisation layer means that serial devices can be shared between different processes. The virtualisation layer also allows developers to write software serial ports. These are known as CSYs and are generally networking protocol stacks that implement a serial interface. In this context a serial interface means the RComm API. For example, RComm::Read(), RComm::Write() and RComm::Signal().

Serial port performance is determined by the APIs used and the configuration for the ports. A client application must consider port configuration and handshaking in order to get optimal performance.

• Architecture
  This topic describes the architecture of the Serial Communications Server.
• What are Serial Ports
  The term Serial Port has different meanings at the different levels within the Serial Communications Server. These differences are caused by each level defining classes to represent a serial port.
• What are Serial Protocol Modules (CSYs)
  This topic describes the Comms SYstem (CSY) plug-ins, which the Serial Communications Server uses to control serial ports. Serial protocol module are also known as CSYs after the extension of the filename for their DLLs.
• What are Serial Port Configuration Blocks
  
• What are Serial Port Capability Blocks
  
• What is the Serial Protocol Module Interface
  
• Serial Ports and Power Management
  The power requirements of a standard serial port can be significant. This topic describes the issues that can result from this.
• RS232 Control Lines