Serial IO

Serial IO

Release: Serial IO, v1.0

Release Type: Production
Version: 1.0
Release Notes

Changes since Serial IO 0.2

  • Released source code on GitHub.

Release: Serial IO, v20091206

Release Type: Beta
Version: 20091206
Release Notes

Updates:

  • Altered "Data" string conversion to handle characters > 127 (however the hex "Binary Data" input port should still be used to preserve full 8-bit data).
  • Added 64bit build.

Release: Serial IO, v20080326

Release Type: Beta
Version: 20080326
Release Notes

This is a fairly polished serial io patch (both smokris and I have been hacking on it mercilessly for the past day or two for an upcoming project)

Input and Output has been varified with an Arduino Diecimila at a few different baud rates (9600, 38400) with success. Binary output works (was added several betas ago, didn't get personally tested by me till today ;).

However, as is the case with all things kineme, we've hit upon a pretty nasty driver bug with ftdi (not surprised). I'm working with one of their techs to resolve this issue, hopefully that'll be fruitful.

The problem is basically this: Opening the serial port but never reading from it eventually causes some buffer overflows in the kernel. This causes some annoying side effects if you don't catch it soon enough. So if you have a Serial Output patch in the composition, you should add a matching Serial Input patch (with a specified break string!), and send its output to some red patch (a zero-count iterator is a cheap data sink). This will cause it to read out the buffer, averting the potential overflow (which shouldn't happen anyway).

This is close to a production release; please hammer on it, and find any weird corner cases where it doesn't work as expected (breakstring-less input will stop at 1 million bytes, then it'll probably trigger the overflow as noted above. This is the only known misfeature presently).

Release: Serial IO, v20080319

Release Type: Beta
Version: 20080319
Release Notes

This update to the SerialIO patch addresses a bunch of bugs with the serial input patch. Break String stuff now works.

It has been tested with our arduino board for simple reception, and appears to handle it well. It's likely for issues to still exist, but now we're in a position to test a bit, so development on this can proceed with more ease than earlier this year.

Release: Serial IO, v20080103

Release Type: Beta
Version: 20080103
Release Notes

This Serial IO Beta addresses the issues in the previous beta.

The hex conversion if fixed for the Serial Output patch.

Output continues to operate even if some configuration settings fail. This may help it to work with some DMX devices (I've not had any luck yet, but you may have better luck with different devices).