Newb Needs Advice!

As suggested in the title of this post, I am very new to electronics in general but I am very eager to learn

With that said, my question is this:

I am trying to interface a pc to another device via serial connection (sounds easy enough). WRONG!! I hit a small snag when i found out the device I'm trying to connect to my pc transmits serial in a very strange way (at least I think it’s strange). See below:

Questionable Device Serial Protocol

11 Bits and a nine (9) bit byte
Tx - 100mA @ 4V
Rx - 15mA @ 1V


As I stated before, I am a complete newbie with this stuff but it would appear some type of conversion needs to be made to make this interfacable with an RS232 port on my pc.

Any advice would be a great help. And I hate to ask this but please dumb down your answer so a regular Joe can understand

I am trying to interface a pc to another device via serial connection

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What is the name of this device?

kchriste said:

What is the name of this device?

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DOH!! sorry, I guess that information would have been helpfull huh?

I have called the device by many names. all of which are, for the sake of this forum, off limits. but the general name is a VENDING MACHINE . the connection is being made on the MDB plug.

hope this helps.

Assuming that spec is correct?, although it's too vague to actually create an interface, you wouldn't be able to use the hardware serial port. You could either create a suitable serial port in software (using either the parallel port or serial port handshake lines), or use a PIC to convert formats and use the hardware serial port on the PC.

The other problem is converting the actual signal itself?.