Bill Freeman wrote:

> Harold Hallikainen writes:
>  > I'm wondering about a cheap and dirty way to get a Windoze GUI for PIC
>  > projects. Is there any way to direct a URL request from a browser to a
>  > COMM port? Say, instead of the http:// or file:// prefix, we did a com1://
>  > prefix (perhaps a URL of com1://mydevice/analog?chan=1). Instead of
>  > sending the request out to the specified IP address over ethernet, it'd
>  > send the GET or POST request out the specified EIA232 port. Our PIC would
> 
> 	Not exactly what you're asking for, but a web server
> supporting cgi-bin scripts (apache) or possibly some other form of
> server side scripting (php, mod-perl, mod-python) would allow URLs
> somethin like:
> 
>     http://localhost/cgi-bin/pic-wacker?port=com1?func=analog?chan=1

I guess this is as good as it gets. Inventing a new protocol doesn't make
much sense, because none of the browsers would understand it -- and that's
the start idea of this, if I understand it correctly. What good does you do
a com1: or ser: or serial: protocol if you have to write your own browser
to use it?

So stick with http (that's what you seem to want to use anyway, indicated
by your wanting to use GET and POST, both http commands), run it to a local
web server (enough free ones around, including IIS) and provide a program
there (ASP, PHP, Python, whatever) that performs the serial communication,
in a form very similar to how it would talk to a database.

It seems this guy has done just this (from Richard's post):
http://www.easyvitools.com/ezcom2web/index.html

The thing left to do is to come up with a serial protocol that addresses
all your needs and that you implement in a language of your choice on the
PC as a cgi program or script (so that it can run under control of the
local web server).

Gerhard
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