o/t (sort of)...rs232 controls?

asinsh · Post by **asinsh** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 1:21 pm

I searched here and on remotecentral and came up empty-handed...does anyone have a lead on a site like this for people that control equipment via rs232 rather than IR? I've got a device that I normally control via IR but it has one particular seldom used function that is only accessible via RS232 control; I'd love a lead on how to access that function.

Post by **The Robman** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 2:24 pm

Depending on what the device is, there might be a site dedicated to the device itself.

asinsh · Post by **asinsh** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 2:30 pm

Thanks, Rob. Someone at avsforum suggested that all I need to is fire up XP's simple hyperterminal program and send the ascii commands listed for the device in the device's manual, so I'll give that a try.

Mark Pierson · Post by **Mark Pierson** » Mon Dec 08, 2003 4:22 pm

asinsh wrote:fire up XP's simple hyperterminal program

Good luck! From what I've seen and heard, XP doesn't like HyperTerminal (or perhaps serial comm programs in general) all that much. We have a voice mail system at work that's controled and programmed via RS-232. When we upgrade all our PC's to XP, we couldn't talk to it anymore. We had to revert a desktop back to Win98 just for it. Of course, YMMV, and I'd be interested in hearing if it does work for you.

SemperFi · Post by **SemperFi** » Thu Dec 11, 2003 6:45 pm

I have windows xp and hyperterminal works to access my tivo. Both serial and through the ethernet. It does however want to send an error report every time I close it though.

gjarboni · Post by **gjarboni** » Fri Dec 12, 2003 8:50 pm

Once you figure out what characters you send out via RS-232, you might want to look at slink-e (do a search on google to find the website) and other related devices. The slink-e can receive listen for IR signals and (when receiving a certain signal) send an RS-232 signal. There are other devices on the market that do the same thing, but slink-e is the only one I can think of right now. (Disclaimer: no commercial affiliation and I don't own one, but others in this group do).