Re: COM Ports on Emulator vs. Active Sync

That popup indicates to me that ActiveSync is seeng you connect the cable and is hijacking the port trying to use it for transfer. I don't have ActiveSync installed on any PC I have ready access to, but I believe you need to go into the Connection Setting or Options (when the device is not connected) and make sure it's not allowed to try to use the serial port. You'll also want to check to see if the device has a similar option (again, I don't have a device with me to verify).

-Chris

<john.e.otten@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:294c2306-3222-4c07-a36d-465390b58ba8@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ok, I now have a serial cable for my device (an iPAQ running WinMobile
5.0). However, I am having trouble verifying that it is working
properly.

I have a hyperterminal window running on my PC, with a cable from the
PC that attaches to the iPAQ serial cable. I have a null modem in line
that I can insert or remove (since I didn't get any documentation as
to whether a null modem was necessary for this cable - I am assuming
that it is necessary).

I wrote a quick and dirty program to open up the com port on the iPAQ,
write a few characters, and close the port. I based the code on the
main application I have been writing (which works properly on the
emulator), so the baud rates and so forth match the settings on the
hyperterminal. I can compile and run the code in the emulator, and I
see data show up on the hyperterminal when the cables are connected
properly (I have COM1 going through a null modem into COM2 on the
same machine).

I download my program using ActiveSync and the cradle, then remove the
iPAQ from the cradle and plug in the serial cables. When I connect
the cables, the iPAQ shows a "Connect To" dialog for a moment which
then goes away. It has as the default baud rate as 115200. A couple
of characters show up in the hyperterminal during the time the dialog
is visible.

My program and the hyperterminal use a baud rate of 38400 (the program
sets the rate using the DCB). When I run the program from the iPAQ I
don't see anything show up in the hyperterminal. I tried with and
without the null modem.

My wish is to break things down further by having a hyperterminal like
program on the iPAQ. If I can get the two hyperterminals
communicating, I can build up from there. However, the only thing
that might be like a hyperterminal on the iPAQ, Terminal Server (at
least I am guessing that is what it is for), requires a COM setup on
the iPAQ which seems to require a phone number (like I was dialing an
ISP through a modem). I can't find any way to setup a com port on the
iPAQ without this phone number issue.

Any suggestions on what course I should follow?

Thanks!
John

On Apr 18, 2:17 pm, "Dick Grier" <dick_grierNOSPAM@.msn.com> wrote:
Chris's suggestion certainly is the way to go, if you are using a device
with a built-in serial port. You often have to buy the serial cables from
someone OTHER than the device manufacturer, though.

--
Richard Grier, MVP
Hard & Software
Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, Fourth
Edition,
ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages, includes CD-ROM). July 2004, Revised March
2006.
Seewww.hardandsoftware.netfor details and contact information.

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