Problem:
The formerly ubiquitous RS232 serial ports on PC's has become
"un-ubiquitous"  replaced by the now even more ubiquitous USB port.

We have many products that used 232 to talk to PC's; what is the easiest
way to modify them for USB operation?  And by modify, I mean production
wise, not just one or two.

What I'm wondering about is putting a USB adapter chip on my circuit board
(no dongles or external adapters).  Where a PIC used to go through
something like a MAX232 level shifter to the board edge, I now want to put
something perhaps like the FTDI245BM chip. Or a Microchip part. Or a
Cypress part. Or ?

Is it possible to just buy a chip solution and put it on the board such
that I talk to it via my serial data lines so my PIC code is for the most
part unaltered?  And furthermore, is it possible to do so without needing
to write PC-side drivers or know about descriptors or other USB stuff?  For
many of my applications, data rate equivalents of around 9600 to 115,200
will do fine.  And for some, very low amounts of data; maybe 10 to
100Kbytes total at a connection.  Bit-bucket apps.

I'm guessing this has been addressed by a large-ish subset of PIC'sters by
now.  Thanks for any ideas here.

Tom M.

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