[Rxtx] serial ports on the lan

[Jim Redman]

Mariusz,

One device that is of interest to us is a network device that has a 
serial port(s) attached to it - your "RS232_Over_IP".   Something like 
this (from DIGI):

http://www.digi.com/products/serialservers/etherlite.jsp#overview

You interact with these over a socket port so no JNI is required 
(although that's not really important to me).  Our goal in using RXTX to 
interact with these is that we could continue to use our serial code 
unchanged.  I keep hoping that I'll find time to add this to RXTX, so 
far no luck.

The capabilities of the devices vary.  On some you can set the serial 
port parameters over the network link.  On others, you set the 
parameters, typically through a web-interface and then just send/receive 
characters on a socket port.  AFAIK there's no widely adopted standard.

Jim

M.Dec-Gazeta wrote:
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Dr. Douglas Lyon" <lyon at docjava.com>
> To: <rxtx at qbang.org>; <lyon at docjava.com>
> Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2009 1:24 PM
> Subject: [Rxtx] serial ports on the lan
> 
> 
>> Hi All,
>>
>> More-over, with a network in the substrate, I can run my programs without
>> having to load JNI binaries on every machine. This enables
> 
> I think that this is serious mistake in your analysis if we are talking 
> about Java environment.
> Java beeing independent of OS platform works on the basis of the lot of  JNI 
> interfaces prepared for each platform separatelly.
> JNI is the interface between OS/hardware and Java (JVM).
> A lot of  Java users don't think about it (or doesn't know also), but this 
> is the fact.
> 
> No JNI interface in software interacting with hardware, means that this 
> software isn't pure Java software - Java software needs JVM, JVM needs JNI 
> to "talk" with OS.
> But in any case network interface (soft/hard) which interacts with serial 
> (RS-232) needs special part of the binaries (software logic between Network 
> and Serial) and doesn't matter this is "JNI" or somewhat.
> Remember that RS232 (serial)  is in fact phisical layer with simple hardware 
> handshake (CTS/RTS etc.) and has nothing to TCP/IP, UDP, QOS etc which are 
> logical layers of the connection.
> Of course in theory you may prepare TCP/IP over RS232 hardware layer but it 
> hasn't any sense.
> 
>> deployment with far greater ease. Now, with an IP address and a port
>> number
> 
> You have described protocol "RS232_Over_IP" similar in ideas to 
> "Voice_Over_IP".
> Such ideas needs a lot of special binaries - drivers controlling serial 
> interfaces in the core of the LAN interfaces software.
> 
> It has nothing to RXTX core - RXTX is a part of JVM with JNI for serials 
> interfaces for different platforms.
> 
> You may prepare overlay to TCP/IP based on RXTX, finally creating 
> RS232_Over_IP (RoIP) or better - UART_over_IP - UoIP.  :).
> But JNI stiil HAVE TO exists everywhere.
> 
> Regards
> and
> Happy New 2010 Year for everybody
> 
> Mariusz Dec
> 
> 
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-- 
Jim Redman
(505) 662 5156 x85
http://www.ergotech.com