The Serial Preference Editor The Serial Editor sets the specifications for your serial port.

The configurable options are as follows:

Baud Rate

Your baud rate determines the number of bits transferred through the serial port each second.

The Baud rate gadget slider helps you to set the Baud rate of your serial port the higher the number the faster the transfer. Your modem must be capable of achieving the highest baud rate you set. ( default is 9660)

Input Buffer Size

The Input Buffer is an area of memory set aside for incoming serial data. Sizes rangge from 512 to 65536 bytes. Use a larger buffer for higher Baud rates. (default is 512 Bytes)

Handshaking

The flow of information through the serial port and the attached device is controled through handshaking. Both devices must be set the same. Available options are:

• XON/XOFF
  Special characters called XON and XOFF are embedded in the data stream between the two devices to regulate the flow.
• RTS/CTS
  This method requires a special serial cable. achieved by separate control lines called Request to Send ( RTS) and Clear to Send (CTS) to regulate the data flow.
• NONE
  No handshaking will be used.

Parity

parity detects errors in the transmitted data stream by checking the bit of each character, called the parity bit. Available parity settings are:

• None
  This should be used when the Bits/Char is set to 8. No parity checking will occur
• Even
  The total number of ON bits in each character should always be even.
• Odd
  Total number of ON bits should always be an ODD number
• Mark
  Parity bit is always on
• Space
  The parity bit is always off

Bits/Char

Bits per character specifies the number of bits that are sent through the serial port for each character and the number of bits expected for each character received.

If parity is set to even, odd, mark, or space this should be set to 7. otherwise set it to 8.

Stop Bits

Stop bits are extra bits of data added to the end of a character to allow the spaceing between words and to indicate the end of a transmission. This should usually be set to 1 data bit.

See also Port-Handler

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