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Starting with Windows 2000, a COM port is a type of serial port that complies with the following additional requirements:

To install serial ports and COM ports using these system-supplied components, do the following: Provide an INF file that specifies the Ports device setup class and the Serial function driver as the service for the port. To configure a serial port as COM port, comply with the requirements that are defined in Configuration of COM Ports. Sep 11, 2001  Checkout Q252184 at the MS Knowledgebase HERE. Actions 2001-Sep-7 5:29 pm. I'm not saying that is THE serial port in question, but it's A serial port. No modem on COM3 in DOS.

• You access the COM port through an instance of the COM port device interface class. The GUID for this class is GUID_DEVINTERFACE_COMPORT, which is defined in Ntddser.h.

• You operate the COM port by using the 16550 UART-compatible interface that is defined in Ntddser.h.

• To ensure compatibility with most applications that access COM ports, you should assign a symbolic link name that uses the standard naming convention 'COM<n>', where <n> is the COM port number (for example, COM1). If you use a COM<n> name, you must obtain the COM port number <n> from the COM port database. COM port numbers should only be used with COM<n> names.

By default, the combined operation of the class installer for the Ports device setup class and the Serial function driver configure a device as a COM port.

For information about how the Ports class installer and Serial create a COM port device interface for a COM port, see External Naming of COM Ports.

A connector used for a serial port on an computer along with the serial port symbol.In, a serial port is a interface through which information transfers in or out sequentially one at a time. This is in contrast to a which communicates multiple bits simultaneously in.

Throughout most of the history of, data was transferred through serial ports to devices such as modems, and various peripherals.While such interfaces as, and all send data as a serial, the term serial port usually identifies hardware compliant to the standard or similar and intended to interface with a or with a similar communication device. It can also refer to hardware compliant to other standards, such as and, that are often used in industrial settings.Modern computers without serial ports may require USB-to-serial converters to allow compatibility with RS-232 serial devices.

Serial ports are still used in applications such as industrial automation systems, scientific instruments, systems and some industrial and consumer products. Computers may use a serial port as a control console for diagnostics. Network equipment (such as routers and switches) often use serial console for configuration. Serial ports are still used in these areas as they are simple, cheap and their console functions are highly standardized and widespread. A serial port requires very little supporting software from the host system. Contents.Hardware Some computers, such as the, use an called a. Twinklecam pro dc 2120 driver for mac.

This IC converts characters to and from form, implementing the timing and framing of data in hardware. Very low-cost systems, such as some early, would instead use the to send the data through an pin, using the technique. Before (LSI) UART integrated circuits were common, a would have a serial port made of multiple small-scale integrated circuits to implement shift registers, logic gates, counters, and all the other logic for a serial port.Early home computers often had proprietary serial ports with pinouts and voltage levels incompatible with RS-232.

Inter-operation with RS-232 devices may be impossible as the serial port cannot withstand the voltage levels produced and may have other differences that ' the user to products of a particular manufacturer.Low-cost processors now allow higher-speed, but more complex, serial communication standards such as and to replace RS-232. These make it possible to connect devices that would not have operated feasibly over slower serial connections, such as mass storage, sound, and video devices.Many personal computer motherboards still have at least one serial port, even if accessible only through a. Small-form-factor systems and laptops may omit RS-232 connector ports to conserve space, but the electronics are still there. RS-232 has been standard for so long that the circuits needed to control a serial port became very cheap and often exist on a single chip, sometimes also with circuitry for a parallel port. A converter from USB to an RS-232 compatible serial port; more than a physical transition, it requires a driver in the host system software and a built-in processor to emulate the functions of the compatible serial port hardware.DTE and DCE The individual signals on a serial port are unidirectional and when connecting two devices the outputs of one device must be connected to the inputs of the other. Devices are divided into two categories (DTE) and (DCE). A line that is an output on a DTE device is an input on a DCE device and vice versa so a DCE device can be connected to a DTE device with a straight wired cable.

Conventionally, computers and terminals are DTE while modems and peripherals are DCE.If it is necessary to connect two DTE devices (or two DCE devices but that is more unusual) a cross-over, in the form of either an adapter or a cable, must be used.Male and female. DE-9 gender changers, showing both male (visible on the left) and female DE-9 connectors (visible on the right)Generally, serial port connectors are gendered, only allowing connectors to mate with a connector of the opposite gender. With connectors, the male connectors have protruding pins, and female connectors have corresponding round sockets. Either type of connector can be mounted on equipment or a panel; or terminate a cable.Connectors mounted on DTE are likely to be male, and those mounted on DCE are likely to be female (with the cable connectors being the opposite). However, this is far from universal; for instance, most serial printers have a female DB25 connector, but they are DTEs. Connectors While the RS-232 standard originally specified a 25-pin D-subminiature connector, many designers of personal computers chose to implement only a subset of the full standard: they traded off compatibility with the standard against the use of less costly and more compact connectors (in particular the DE-9 version used by the original ). The desire to supply serial interface cards with two ports required that IBM reduce the size of the connector to fit onto a single card back panel.

A DE-9 connector also fits onto a card with a second DB-25 connector. Starting around the time of the introduction of the IBM PC-AT, serial ports were commonly built with a 9-pin connector to save cost and space. However, presence of a 9-pin D-subminiature connector is not sufficient to indicate the connection is in fact a serial port, since this connector is also used for video, joysticks, and other purposes.Some miniaturized electronics, particularly and hand-held and equipment, have serial ports using a, usually the smaller 2.5 or 3.5 mm connectors and use the most basic 3-wire interface.Many models of favor the related standard, mostly using circular, except in the earliest models. The Macintosh included a standard set of two ports for connection to a printer and a modem, but some laptops had only one combined port to save space.Since most devices do not use all of the 20 signals that are defined by the standard, smaller connectors are often used. For example, the 9-pin DE-9 connector is used by most IBM-compatible PCs since the IBM PC AT, and has been standardized as TIA-574. More recently, have been used. Most common are connectors, for which the standard defines a pinout, while the 'Yost Serial Device Wiring Standard' invented by Dave Yost (and popularized by the ) is common on computers and newer devices from.

Connectors can be found on some devices as well. Defined their own connection system which is based on the (MMJ) connector. Indian history in hindi. This is a 6-pin modular where the key is offset from the center position. As with the Yost standard, DECconnect uses a symmetrical pin layout which enables the direct connection between two DTEs.

Another common connector is the DH10 header connector common on motherboards and add-in cards which is usually converted via a cable to the more standard 9-pin DE-9 connector (and frequently mounted on a free slot plate or other part of the housing). A 3560-16S used for RS-232 on a TWN-5213 CU tablet computer. Below is a mating 3540-16P-CV connector.Pinouts The following table lists commonly used RS-232 signals and pin assignments. Main article:Parity is a method of detecting errors in transmission. When parity is used with a serial port, an extra data bit is sent with each data character, arranged so that the number of 1 bits in each character, including the parity bit, is always odd or always even.

If a byte is received with the wrong number of 1s, then it must have been corrupted. However, an even number of errors can pass the parity check.Electromechanical teleprinters were arranged to print a special character when received data contained a parity error, to allow detection of messages damaged.

Main article:In many circumstances a transmitter might be able to send data faster than the receiver is able to process it. To cope with this, serial lines often incorporate a ' method, usually distinguished between hardware and software handshaking.Hardware handshaking is done with extra signals, often the RS-232 RTS/CTS or DTR/DSR signal circuits. Generally, the RTS and CTS are turned off and on from alternate ends to control data flow, for instance when a buffer is almost full. DTR and DSR are usually on all the time and, per the RS-232 standard and its successors, are used to signal from each end that the other equipment is actually present and powered-up.

However, manufacturers have over the years built many devices that implemented non-standard variations on the standard, for example, printers that use DTR as flow control.Software handshaking is done for example with to control the flow of data. The XON and XOFF characters are sent by the receiver to the sender to control when the sender will send data, that is, these characters go in the opposite direction to the data being sent. The circuit starts in the 'sending allowed' state. When the receiver's buffers approach capacity, the receiver sends the XOFF character to tell the sender to stop sending data. Later, after the receiver has emptied its buffers, it sends an XON character to tell the sender to resume transmission.

It is an example of, where control information is sent over the same channel as its data.The advantage of hardware handshaking is that it can be extremely fast; it doesn't impose any particular meaning such as ASCII on the transferred data; and it is. Its disadvantage is that it requires more hardware and cabling, and these must be compatible at both ends.The advantage of software handshaking is that it can be done with absent or incompatible hardware handshaking circuits and cabling. The disadvantage, common to all in-band control signaling, is that it introduces complexities in ensuring that a) control messages get through even when data messages are blocked, and b) data can never be mistaken for control signals. The former is normally dealt with by the operating system or device driver; the latter normally by ensuring that control codes are ' (such as in the ) or omitted by design (such as in ).If no handshaking is employed, an overrun receiver might simply fail to receive data from the transmitter. Approaches for preventing this include reducing the speed of the connection so that the receiver can always keep up; increasing the size of so it can keep up averaged over a longer time; using delays after time-consuming operations (e.g.

In ) or employing a mechanism to resend data which has been corrupted (e.g. Virtual' serial ports. Main article:A virtual serial port is an emulation of the standard serial port. This port is created by software which enable extra serial ports in an operating system without additional hardware installation (such as, etc.). It is possible to create a large number of virtual serial ports in a PC. The only limitation is the amount of resources, such as operating memory and computing power, needed to emulate many serial ports at the same time.Virtual serial ports emulate all hardware serial port functionality, including, data bits, parity bits, stop bits, etc. Additionally, they allow controlling the data flow, emulating all signal lines (DTR, DSR, CTS, RTS, DCD, and RI) and customizing pinout.

Virtual serial ports are common with and are the standard way of receiving data from Bluetooth-equipped GPS modules.Virtual serial port emulation can be useful in case there is a lack of available physical serial ports or they do not meet the current requirements. For instance, virtual serial ports can share data between several applications from one device connected to a serial port. Another option is to communicate with any other serial devices via internet or LAN as if they are locally connected to computer (/serial-over-Ethernet technology). Two computers or applications can communicate through an emulated serial port link.

Virtual serial port emulators are available for many operating systems including MacOS, Linux, NetBSD and other Unix-like operating systems, and various mobile and desktop versions of Microsoft Windows.See also.References.