Serial Port Monitor

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Eric - 09 Jan 2006 13:47 GMT

There seems to be several serial port monitors available under Windows
(http://www.hhdsoftware.com/sermon_details.html), but I am having
trouble finding one that will run under MacOSX 10.3.9 or 10.4.x.

Any suggestions?

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Tom Harrington - 09 Jan 2006 17:50 GMT

> There seems to be several serial port monitors available under Windows
> (http://www.hhdsoftware.com/sermon_details.html), but I am having
> trouble finding one that will run under MacOSX 10.3.9 or 10.4.x.
>
> Any suggestions?

Maybe "USB Prober", which is included free with Apple's developer tools?

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Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 2.0: Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

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G.T. - 09 Jan 2006 18:14 GMT

>>There seems to be several serial port monitors available under Windows
>>(http://www.hhdsoftware.com/sermon_details.html), but I am having
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> Maybe "USB Prober", which is included free with Apple's developer tools?

USB Prober provides an API for manipulating and debugging RS232 and RS422?

Greg

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"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons

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Tom Harrington - 09 Jan 2006 20:35 GMT

> >>There seems to be several serial port monitors available under Windows
> >>(http://www.hhdsoftware.com/sermon_details.html), but I am having
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> USB Prober provides an API for manipulating and debugging RS232 and RS422?

USB is serial, right? If a question is not specific, the answer may not
fit the asker's needs.

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Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 2.0: Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

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G.T. - 10 Jan 2006 00:45 GMT

> > >>There seems to be several serial port monitors available under Windows
> > >>(http://www.hhdsoftware.com/sermon_details.html), but I am having
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> USB is serial, right?

Yes, serial bus, not port.

Greg

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Tom Harrington - 10 Jan 2006 05:19 GMT

> > > >>There seems to be several serial port monitors available under Windows
> > > >>(http://www.hhdsoftware.com/sermon_details.html), but I am having
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>
> Yes, serial bus, not port.

The bus is commonly used through the USB ports on the Mac, else it
wouldn't be much use to most people.

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Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 2.0: Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

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G.T. - 10 Jan 2006 07:42 GMT

>>>>>>There seems to be several serial port monitors available under Windows
>>>>>>(http://www.hhdsoftware.com/sermon_details.html), but I am having
[quoted text clipped - 16 lines]
> The bus is commonly used through the USB ports on the Mac, else it
> wouldn't be much use to most people.

Well, since he included an example at
http://www.hhdsoftware.com/sermon_details.html it was clear he was
talking about good old standard simple RS232 serial ports. Not some
complicated bus that just happens to have serial in the name and that
just happens to be accessed through a port/connection/hole in the
computer/what have you.

Greg

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"All my time I spent in heaven
Revelries of dance and wine
Waking to the sound of laughter
Up I'd rise and kiss the sky" - The Mekons

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vze35xda@verizon.net - 09 Jan 2006 18:11 GMT

What are you wanting to monitor ? You have USB <-> Serial device and
are you writing the software to talk to something over this port or is
there commercial software running on the machine talking through the
port and you want to monitor that ?

You can download SERMONCL
(http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze35xda/software.html) which is a
serial dump program like tcpdump for ethernet. To use it you need
another two serial ports (Keyspan USA-28X) and use them to monitor the
serial line.

Another way, if you are doing your own software is TERMS
(http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze35xda/software.html) TERMS is a
terminal server, it will hook a serial port to a TCP/IP port and you
talk to that from your program and then you can monitor all the data
via tcpdump or Ethereal.

These aren't as nice as the program you reference but they are free and
you get source.

--jim

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ericgorr@gmail.com - 09 Jan 2006 20:05 GMT

> What are you wanting to monitor ?

I have a piece of hardware connected to a Mac via a 9-pin Keyspan.

I want to monitor the commands I am sending to this hardware and the
information it is sending back to me.

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ericgorr@gmail.com - 09 Jan 2006 20:23 GMT

> > What are you wanting to monitor ?
>
> I have a piece of hardware connected to a Mac via a 9-pin Keyspan.
>
> I want to monitor the commands I am sending to this hardware and the
> information it is sending back to me.

Oh, Keyspan does, of course, have a utility to help with this, but it
will not show everything.

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ericgorr@gmail.com - 10 Jan 2006 13:14 GMT

> You can download SERMONCL
> (http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze35xda/software.html) which is a
> serial dump program like tcpdump for ethernet. To use it you need
> another two serial ports (Keyspan USA-28X) and use them to monitor the
> serial line.

Thanks for the suggestion, but couldn't seem to get this to work. I
found one other tool called interceptty
(http://www.suspectclass.com/~sgifford/interceptty/), but couldn't get
that to work either. Ended up using some Windows software and a Windows
machine to watch the communication.

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Mac Forum / Programming / Mac Programming / January 2006

Serial Port Monitor