From: jzakiya@...
Date: 2006-09-04T03:30:40+09:00
Subject: Controlling USB-RS232 interface

Before reverting to C, et al, can I use Ruby to do this?

I have a ccd camera which has a 4 pin serial interface (pwr, gnd, txd,
rxd).
I have a board that provides a 9-pin rs232 connector which is used to
interface to it.
I want to control it with a notebook (Toshiaba Satellite) which has no
rs232 ports
and 3 USB-2 connectors.  I have a USB-R232 (9-pin male) cable which can
connect
to the camera board. The cameral comes with a canned gui frontend app
which
interfaces to the camera and allows you to take pictures at different
resolutions,
but is basically just to verify that the system is working. I can only
run this software
on my old (circa 1999) desktop because it has a serial connector and
the software is
hardwired to use COM1. It's a simple windows program that I'm runnning
under Win 98,
and can also run under Linux (PCLinuxOS) using WINE. So I can take
pictures and
verify that the camera works under different resolutions under both
OSes.

I need to access the camera and take full control of its features and
functionality.
Thus, I need to fully control the command interface to the camers,
which requires
sending/receiving commands (6 byte codes) and receiving images.  This
requires
controllnig the rs232 interface to the camera.

So, can anyone provide or direct me to code for controlling an old
rs232 serial port and a new
USB-RS232 serial connection?

Thanks in advance.

Jabari