Language & controls for simple USB soft - host side

Please note: I am asking for personal experiences and no for links. Too long time reading in the Web and the mambo jumbo in my head is enough. **broken link removed**

Also, please note: I know nothing about C.

I've got a basic USB device up & running just by using Brad Minch's software and now I would like to read on the screen, data sent by the device to the PC.

With RS232 I used Hyperteminal which worked OK for my needs.

My questions:

1 - Is it there anything like Hyperterminal available now for USB?

2 - Wonder if I could use Visual Basic Express (free download from Microsoft). I would like to have comments of anyone with experience on that.

3 - The equivalent of the control "MSComm" does it exist for USB in VB?

4 - Soft writen in VB 6.0, if available, would it be rather different from what I need with Visual Express? Always oriented to simple soft getting data from the device via USB.

5 - Just by chance I run across of some articles talking USB soft (host side) writen in Delphi.

Short replies in the order of the questions will be much appreciated. Really!

Gracias.

Well a common trick is to simply make the PIC identify it self as a COM port. There is some example code on the net for this. When you do it like this when plugged in the PC it will make a new COM port and you can use hyper terminal and mscomm on it.

What I want is plain USB not an uncomplete / intermediate solution.

I am looking for a control dealing with USB like a WebBrowser in C# or MSComm in VB.

Well emulated com port is the easiest method for talking to a microcontroller on USB. The other way is making a custom driver and make windows use it and then talk to the driver dll trough API. USB devices need to be accessed trough drivers. Its not like other ports where you just open the port and start talking.

So i suggest you just make the PIC tell its a com port, because windows already has drivers for USB com ports built in (like drivers for USB thumb drives) . Then you simply connect to the new "com port" useing mscomm controll in VB. Also it will ignore the baudrate and other settings it will just trasfer it at the USBs max speed.

OK - Noted

Hola Someone,

It seems that there too many things I still ignore.

Will keep going and see if I manage to do as you say. Thanks a lot.

I am working on the USB project too.. did quite some research and reading on it thru web.

I found just a few information on the web to be useful but if you are looking for a simple com object to interface USB, I still haven't come by any open resource.

The thing is, USB has to be interfaced through device driver which the simplest would be using HID class driver. Jan Axelson's source code for both PC and PIC side is quite nicely done. still it is not easy to digest all the codes for both PC and PIC side.

p.s. if you want something quick, you can use the bit wacker..

regards,
SKY

USB PIC - PC communication

Hi,
if you wont a quick, clean and safe solution, use Microchip's PICDEM FS USB DEMO environment. You will get a demo board (Part # DM163025) and all the software, documentation, sample code you need for your solution. You can also download the newest versions ot that for free.

The demo software contains two approaches, a HID and a COMport emulation (CDA). With the COMport emulation you can make use of the full USB speed, the HID is slower. Also you will get the Bootloader, so you can configure your own devices as USB compliant. The Demo environment ist dedicated to the PIC18F4550/2550 device family. I'm using all four types 4550, 4455, 2550 and 2455 for my projects.

To program new devices with the bootloader, you need a Programmer like PICkit 2. The cost of all this stuff, including the PICkit 2, will make about 100,00 Eur.

In addition to that the demo package contains the develop tools to program your own USB device driver.

I made some prototyping with the COMport emulation (CDA) like digital oscilloscope, FFT analyzer, tuner frequency control and other control functions for synthesizer and DSO devices. They all are working fine so I'm fully satisfied.

Erhard