On April 21, 2010 at 08:52, Matt said...
By dying out, perhaps the RS232 transport will die out someday, but you will most likely use the same protocol on the new transport which is probably IP. So learning RS232 isn't really accurate, you're learning protocols, data manipulation, and binary mathematics, which will always be important no matter the transport mechanism.
Well said.
RS232 is simply specification. A piece of paper. Oversimplifying, it says things like "apply +5 volts to pin 1 for 50 milliseconds"... :)
The "RS232" ports on the back of your computer, often a DB-9 connector, are also called "Serial Ports" or "COM ports".
By "dying", I think it's more accurate to observe that the number of PCs (or devices for that matter) shipping with serial ports is falling. Serial Ports are being replaced by USB ports, for lots of good reasons.
Whether the protocol changes, when a device manufacturer changes from serial to USB, depends on the manufacturer.
Again - oversimplifying - the commands I send, over the serial port to a CM11A device, to turn on light A-1 might be "02 05 3F AA" (in hex).
X-10, could choose to keep that same command string, to turn on light A-1 for their CM15A device, their USB version of the CM11A.
Or they could choose to change it.
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Same thing goes for a device that has an IP connection - they could choose to accept an IP packet with those bytes in them, or they could decide to change it, to implement some new device control protocol.
