Hi, I am working on a design which uses four PIC16F877 at different locations and communicate to a PC using RS485. I am planning to use MAX chips on each microcontroller board and have them place the data on the common data line to PC only when they are addressed by the PC. On the PC side we plan to use MAX232 and a MAX488E/MAX489E chip. When I read through the data sheet for MAX488E/489E chips, I could not understand the distinction between MAX488E and MAX489E chips. I see from the data sheet that for all these chips their outputs of drivers are short circuit protected and have thermal shutdown. However, for MAX488E their driver can not be put in to High Z line (no enable/disable pins). If this is the case, is it correct to connect the driver outputs of several MAX488E to the same pair of lines? Why do MAX489E chips have a separate driver enable/disable line even though their driver outputs are also similar (short circuit protected and thermal shutdown) to those of MAX488E chips? Thanks in advance. Vetri -- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads