Serial ports are, sadly, a bit out of date. That's a shame because it was pretty easy to work with serial ports -- especially since the advent of chips like the MAX232 that didn't require negative voltage supplies. Of course, it is easy enough to get a USB to serial cable and you are back in business. But that looks a bit Rube Goldbergish. There are also some nice chips from FTDI that are basically the guts of a USB to serial cable so you can make a more polished product. However, I saw an inexpensive development board that looks like it would be fun although I haven't tried it myself. The tiny board (costs less than twenty bucks) has a 16MHz AVR chip onboard and has tools for Windows, Linux and Mac. I may just have to try one.

April 05, 2010
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/embedded-systems/teensy-usb-development-board/228700144

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