This is a mini-lecture on writing C programs to use the Serial Driver to send and receive using the Macintosh serial port. If at all possible, try to use the Serial Driver rather than talking directly to the hardware. It will make life simpler. To illustrate the techniques I am using a simple program I wrote some years ago when I was playing around with hardware and software handshaking. The complete program is included at the end of this page.

Opening the serial port

You have to open the output channel, then the input channel, using OpenDriver. 
status = OpenDriver("\p.AOut",&outchan);
status = OpenDriver("\p.AIn",&inchan);
This opens the modem port, if you want to open the printer port substitute the names ".BOut" and ".BIn" instead.

Writing to the serial port

Writing is very simple, you tell it how many bytes to write and where the bytes are. The only weirdness is that the "count" parameter is passed as reference, so it cannot be a literal number. You have to make a "long" variable and store into it. This example writes one character. 
buff[0] = achar;
count = 1;    
status = FSWrite(aoutRefNum,&count,buff);
This example writes a bunch of characters. 
BlockMove("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz\r\n",buff,28);
count = 28;    
status = FSWrite(aoutRefNum,&count,buff);

Reading from the serial port

If you try to blindly read from the serial port, the Macintosh will hang, doing nothing, until those characters are received. To do a non-blocking read you should use the SerGetBuf() function, which returns the number of characters available to be read. This is an interesting coding sequence for processing one character at a time. 
status = SerGetBuf(ainRefNum,&count);
if (0 == count)
    break;
count = 1;
status = FSRead(ainRefNum,&count,cbuff);
ch = 0x7F & cbuff[0];
The SerGetBuf routine returns the actual number of characters in the read buffer, but we only read one of them at a time. Then we strip off the parity bit by ANDing with 0x7F.

Changing the settings

Here is an example for turning on hardware or software handshaking 
SerShk sconf;
/* xonoff */
    sconf.fXOn = 1;
    sconf.fInX = 1;
    sconf.xOn = 17;
    sconf.xOff = 19;

/* hardware
    sconf.fCTS = 1;
    sconf.fDTR = 1;
*/
status = SerHShake(aoutRefNum,&sconf);

[Note: Inside Macintosh: Devices claims that SerHShake does not honor the fDTR flag and that you have to use a low-level CSCODE=14 call to make the driver change its DTR flow control enable state. I did not run into this during testing, but I will test it when I get a chance. If this turns out to be the case I guess I will have to update this example... -zben 7/12/95]

Here is an example for setting the baud rate, parity, etc.

status = SerReset(aoutRefNum,baud1200|stop10|noParity|data8);

Example Program

#include <devices.h>
#include <files.h>
#include <fonts.h>
#include <memory.h>
#include <menus.h>
#include <packages.h>
#include <serial.h>
#include <types.h>
#include <windows.h>

WindowPtr windp;
EventRecord myevent;
SerShk sconf;

main()
{
    short status, inchan, outchan;
    Rect bounds;
    char buff[256];

    InitGraf( (Ptr) &qd.thePort );
    InitFonts();
    InitWindows();
    InitMenus();
    TEInit();
    InitDialogs(nil);
    InitCursor();
    
/* xonoff */
    sconf.fXOn = 1;
    sconf.fInX = 1;
    sconf.xOn = 17;
    sconf.xOff = 19;

/* hardware
    sconf.fCTS = 1;
    sconf.fDTR = 1;
*/
    if (noErr != (status=OpenDriver("\p.AOut",&outchan)) ) {
	NumToString(status,buff);
	DebugStr(buff);
	ExitToShell();
    }
    if (noErr != (status=OpenDriver("\p.AIn",&inchan)) ) {
	NumToString(status,buff);
	DebugStr(buff);
	ExitToShell();
    }
	
    if (noErr != (status=SerHShake(aoutRefNum,&sconf)) ) {
	NumToString(status,buff);
	DebugStr(buff);
	ExitToShell();
    }

    SetRect(&bounds,100,100,300,300);
    windp = NewWindow(nil,&bounds,"\pserial",true,documentProc,
        (WindowPtr)-1, true, 0);
    SetPort(windp);
    MoveTo(10,180);
	
    do {
        if ( WaitNextEvent(everyEvent,&myevent,2,nil) )
	    if (keyDown == myevent.what) {
	        status = myevent.message & 0x7F;
	        if (3 == status)
		    muchout();
		else if ('\b' == status)
		    ExitToShell();
		else
		    sendchar(status);
 	    }
        harvest();
    } while (true);
}

harvest()
{
    short status;
    int count;
    char ch;
    char cbuff[10];
    char buff[256];
    RgnHandle xrgn;
    
    do {
        if (noErr != (status=SerGetBuf(ainRefNum,&count)) ) {
	    NumToString(status,buff);
	    DebugStr(buff);
	    ExitToShell();
	}
	if (0 == count)
	    break;
	count = 1;
	FSRead(ainRefNum,&count,cbuff);
	ch = 0x7F & cbuff[0];
	if ('\n' == ch) {
	    xrgn = NewRgn();
	    ScrollRect(&windp->portRect,0,-10,xrgn);
	    DisposeRgn(xrgn);
	    MoveTo(10,180);
	} else
	    DrawChar(ch);
   } while (1);
}

sendchar(int achar)
{
    short status;
    int count;
    char buff[256];

    buff[0] = achar;
    count = 1;    
    if (noErr != (status=FSWrite(aoutRefNum,&count,buff)) ) {
	NumToString(status,buff);
	DebugStr(buff);
    }
}

muchout()
{
    short contl, status;
    int count;
    char buff[256];
    
    BlockMove("abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz\r\n",buff,28);
    for (contl=0; contl<1000; contl++) {
	count = 28;    
	if (noErr != (status=FSWrite(aoutRefNum,&count,buff)) ) {
	    NumToString(status,buff);
	    DebugStr(buff);
	    contl = 1000;
	}
    }
}
You might find more interesting information in Macintosh Technical Notes HW4, HW545, DV11, DV16, and DV555.
Back to ZBEN's home page.