interfacing electronics to the pc...

dottedquad

hello all! I'm a beginner with electronics but not programing. I started getting into electronics when I wanted to create my own sensor project to interact with a pc using linux. The electronic part would be the brains and the pc part will show the values of the sensors and set date/time/settings Etc. What am I getting myself into and how should I interact the two? Usb or serial? As of right now I'm learning the basic of electronics and utilizing my newly learned skills on a bread-board(correct spelling?) and trying to master the soldering skill LOL. I realize I still have a long endeavor ahead of myself.

-Thanks,
Rich

Mike Green

If you have a spare serial port, that is simpler than using USB. You can connect any pair of I/O pins as a serial port to the PC's serial port (with a protective serial resistor ... see the Stamp Basic manual for schematics ... under the SEROUT statement).

If you only have USB ports, you'll have to have some kind of adapter. You can use the built-in serial port on the Board of Education as long as you can tolerate the Stamp being reset when the port is opened from the PC side. The Stamp Editor uses the DTR signal to reset the Stamp for downloading and opening the port will cause this to happen.