Thank  you for purchasing Serial Solutionstm.    Preparing to use  the Serial Class object in your programs is very easy.   The file Serial.rtf  is the  object documentation  for the Serial class, and the Modem.rtf documents the Modem object.   If you are experienced in  developing programs on the NeXT, this style of documentation should be very familiar.

1: Copy the Serial.h, Serial.o  Modem.h and Modem.o files into you project sub-directory.

2:  If you do not already have a file named Makefile.preamble then copy the one we supply into your sub-directory as well.   If you already have a Makefile.preamble then simply add the line.
 
OTHER_OFILES = Serial.o Modem.o

This tells the compiler to link the Serial.o object module and the Modem object module when you compile your program.   If you forget to do this, the compiler will complain that it cannot find the obj_c class named Serial and/or obj_c class named Modem

3: Include the line #import "Serial.h"  or "Modem.h" at the top of the ".m" file that uses serial communications.   This is the normal procedure for using ANY class in a program that you write. 

4:  Be sure that you have read and write permissions for the serial port  that you wish to use.  If you do not have permission to open the port the openRAW or openCBREAK methods will ALWAYS return PORTNOTOPEN.   Because of security considerations the /dev files are owned by root and are marked rw by root only.   You will need to change the permissions of the /dev file or you will need to have the permissions or owner of  your executable program changed.   For stand alone systems, changing the device permissions is the easiest thing to do.   In a multi-user or non-secure system you will need to ask your system administrator how he wishes your program to behave. 

As root you can "chmod 666 /dev/<whatever>" to cover all bases but remember that this does create a security hole.

Other readings:   The zs(4)  and tty(4) man pages explain which device names are related to the serial ports and under what conditions you should use a particular device name. 

How to contact us:

BenaTong
1057 Racine Ave.
Columbus, Ohio 43204
(614) 276-7859   
(614) 276-7859  (fax will auto-switch)
Hours are Monday-Friday 9am to 5pm EST.
cgb@count0.cmhnet.org
or
cgb@next-demo.acs.ohio-state.edu