6. Advanced Virtual COM port
Advanced Virtual COM Port is a communications application that offers COM port to LAN functionality as well as the ability to create virtual serial ports. Your apps will treat these ports as if they were physical interfaces as they are created with all parameters and functionality fully emulated. You can dynamically create, remove, and monitor up to 255 virtual ports with no need of rebooting your machine.
Advanced Virtual COM port supports Windows 2000 - Windows 8.1 (32 and 64-bit) and Windows Server 2012 R2. It also supports Windows CE versions: CE 5.0 (x86), CE 5.0 - 6.0 (arm), Mobile 2003 SE, and Mobile 5.0 - 6.5.
Wired serial connection: pros and cons
A vast variety of modern day equipment is designed to connect to a PC with the help of a standard RS232 cable. This way of communication is typical for today’s POS hardware (barcode scanners, receipt printers, payment terminals), automated industrial lines, specialized laboratory equipment (electrochemistry meters, spectrometers, spectrophotometers) and many other universal devices and instruments.
For many years RS232 has remained a standard protocol for the data transmission. Being a cost-efficient and reliable solution, this port is used by a great number of current hardware and software products. It serves as a basic way of communication for hundreds of serial apps. Considering the ubiquity and flexibility of the interface, the need for this efficient solution is expected to continue well into the future.
On the other side, a typical RS232 connection is established via a regular cable that enables point-to-point communication. This method of linking devices is not always convenient given the distance limitations of the hardware cable. Besides that, connecting every new peripheral to a computer requires a separate cable to be run to a separate serial port of the machine. Therefore, your PC should fit as many COM interfaces as many devices you want to connect to. This not only leads to cable clutter hanging down from the back of your desk but also makes it difficult to attach the device to more than one PC.
Luckily, there are some dedicated hardware and software solutions designed to help you overcome all the abovementioned inconveniences.
About a serial port
A serial port is one of traditional I/O interfaces used by a computer to exchange data with another PC or a serial-based device one bit at a time. Back in the old days, serial ports served for connecting a computer with printers and external modems and nowadays the interface helps to establish a communication between scientific instruments, industrial applications, shop till systems, etc.
If compared with a parallel female interface, a serial port has a male connector. In the system, serial ports are represented as COM1, COM2, COM3, and so on. Each COM interface has its unique position in the technical scheme of a PC and represents an input/output (I/O) address as well as an interrupt request (IRQ) level. That means a printer or a keyboard can transport data to a computer by using the I/O address.
Serial interfaces are able to work in a full-duplex mode, that is transport data in both ways (incoming and outgoing) at a time.
The most common standard for a serial port is RS-232. The devices that communicate via this standard are usually referred to as the DCE (data communications equipment) and DTE (data terminal equipment). The DCE talks to the DTE via serial connectors of different types. The most widespread ones are DE-9 (9-pin) or DB-25 (25-pin) ports.
