RE: How to communicate with another device?

[AIRO(Roland Aigner)]

> Hi,
> I am working on sending data to another device ( power 
> scanner) right now,
> and data is sent by serial communication. However, I don't 
> understand serial
> communication at all. Anyone can give me some help, I will highly
> appreciated.
> 

the serial communication with the palm pilot is documented in the sdk pdf's.
you can do a search for:
SerReceive
SerSend
SerOpen

first you have to init the serial port (i do this after a
sysAppLaunchCmdNormalLaunch):

        err = SysLibFind("Serial Library", &gSerialRefNum);
        ErrNonFatalDisplayIf(err != 0, "Can't find serial library");

        err = SerOpen(gSerialRefNum, 0, 19200);
        if (err != 0) {
                if (err == serErrAlreadyOpen) {
                        FrmAlert(SerialInUseAlertAlert);
                        SerClose(gSerialRefNum);
                } else
                        FrmAlert(CantopenserialAlertAlert);
                return true;
        }

the last parameter passed to seropen is the baud rate

then you can send:

SerSend(gSerialRefNum, &b, 13, &err);
where b = bufferpointer and 13 is the length

or receive:

rec = SerReceive(gSerialRefNum, &read, 1, 100, &err);



hth, roland

(if you need more info i can send you some source off list)