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PrintraNet Internet Printing Configuration
12-1
5
Connecting the Serial Server to Devices
other than Printers
The TROY Serial Server provides a general-purpose method for connecting
RS-232 serial devices to Ethernet networks. It provides a transparent
bidirectional communications path from the RS-232 device to the computer.
In other words, it makes the device look like as though it is directly
connected to the serial port of the computer, even though it is actually
communicating over the Ethernet.
Before using the serial server in this type of application, you must first
make sure that your computer system is running the TCP/IP protocol and
has a valid IP address (refer to your computer's documentation if you do not
know how to do this). You must also enter an IP address, gateway, and
subnet mask into the Serial Server as described in Chapter 4 of this manual.
To establish the communications path to the Serial Server (and therefore to
the RS-232 device), a program on the computer must open a TCP
connection to the IP address of the Serial Server. If you are using
Windows, this can be done by calls to the WINSOCK API. If you are using
UNIX or other operating systems, this can be done by using the appropriate
TCP/IP API supplied by the operating system.
As an alternative, you can use third party Serial Port Emulation software.
This software allows you to use almost any Windows application that
communicates with a standard PC serial port (for example, COM3).
Basically, it looks to the application program like a COM port, but actually
redirects the input/output TCP/IP and Ethernet instead of a hardwired RS-
232 connection.