SerialLinker was born as a software interface between Macintosh applications and particular digital gauges which works with the serial RS-232. That software accepted a particular protocol and was specific for that kind of gauges but it was able to work with any Macintosh application because it sends the incoming data from the serial port to the application as if it would be typed from the keyboard. So we thought: why don't we make it compatible with other devices? It could be interesting for other people. Infact there are many devices that have an RS-232 output that can be sent to a computer, but what is the software to read that output? The answer is SerialLinker!
How to use SerialLinker
SerialLinker is very simple to use: once opened, you have to click the 'Settings...' button to configure the serial port by choosing the correct baud rate, data bits, stop bit and parity bit, you have also to specify the serial port you are using. Remember to turn off AppleTalk in the Chooser if you are going to use the printer port.
Now something about the incoming characters: data arrives as a continous stream from the external device and SerialLinker can divide it into little string. Why it do this? To allow you to write data in different cells in Excel or in different fields in FileMaker Pro. Suppose you have a digital gauge: it sends out the measure separated by CR. I can set CR as string delimiter so that after each measure I can change cell in Excel or field in FileMaker Pro. In the setting dialog window you can do this: you can divide the data stream into string by waiting a fixed number of characters and writing this number into the 'String length' field or selecting the 'String End' check box so that the string is terminated when a CR or LF is received. When you have set up SerialLinker, close the 'Settings...' dialog box and click 'Begin': now you are acquiring data. If you switch to SimpleText or Word, Excel or FileMaker Pro you can see the incoming data. When you want to stop data acquisition just go back to SerialLinker and click 'End'.
SerialLinker Menus
In the 'File' menu you can find the same command that are accessible from the main dialog window: Begin, End, Settings and Quit and two other commands:
1) Load Settings: load the settings from a saved file
2) Save Settings: save the current settings into a file
AppleScript Interface
SerialLinker fully supports AppleScript with a few commands:
1) start acquistion: is exactly the same as clicking the 'Begin' button in SerialLinker: this cause SerialLinker to begin data acquisition
2) stop acquisition: is exactly the same as clicking the 'End' button in SerialLinker: this cause SerialLinker to stop data acquisition
3) set settings: this command set all settings specificable in the 'Settings...' dialog window. When you send this command to AppleScript always remember to specify the serial port you are using: the other fields are optionals.
4) counter: returns the number of acquisition since the last clicking of 'Begin' button.
5) status: returns true if SerialLinker is acquiring.
System requirements
SerialLinker has been written for System 7.5 and has also been tested under MacOS 8.1 on PPC 5400/180.
Working version
The working version is shipped in three releses: 68K, PPC and FAT for US$ 15.
Version History
1.0 first release
1.0.1 new engine for SerialLinker: it allows a better user interface
1.0.2 works with every serial port registered to the Communication manager
