Jan 20, 2021 Enable the VCP Driver loading In the device “Properties”, open the “Advanced” tab and check whether the “Load VCP” option is enabled. Replug your device Unplug your USB device and connect it to your PC again. Now your operating system should be able to recognize the device, and Virtual COM Port Driver should be loaded. If the driver isn't distributed through Windows Update, you can manually reinstall the driver. To do this, follow these steps: Install the device-specific driver (see Method 2). Open Device Manager. Right-click (or tap and hold) the name of the device, and then select Uninstall. Restart the computer.
In an earlier blog post titled 'Develop location-aware, Metro style apps when your development system doesn’t have GPS', one option I presented for those wishing to develop high-precision location-based Windows Store apps is to hook up an external GPS to your computer. What I want to do now is explore this method in greater detail, and I’m creating a three-part series on doing so with a software application called GPSDirect from TurboIRC.COM Software & Research. In part one, we’ll introduce the GPSDirect sensor driver and learn how to use it. In parts two and three, we’ll look at connecting an external GPS recevier and an Android-based smart phone as a GPS provider.
Drivers Catalog ⇒ Port Devices ⇒ Dis-Transics ⇒ Dis-Transics TakFlash Reader Port Drivers Installer for Dis-Transics TakFlash Reader Port If you don’t want to waste time on hunting after the needed driver for your PC, feel free to use a dedicated self-acting installer. Aug 17, 2020 These downloads cover most Intel® Ethernet Adapters and install the latest drivers when you run them. The network adapter property sheet in Windows® 10 provides information about the network adapter and driver on the computer. Follow these steps to open the adapter properties: Right-click the Start button. Click Device Manager from the list. When you plug the device into your USB, Windows will look for the associated driver, if it cannot find this driver then you will be prompted to insert the driver disc that came with your device. Common USB Device errors are ‘ usb port not working ‘, ‘device descriptor request failed error’ or ‘bugcodeusbdriver’ issues.
Part 1: Introducing GPSDirect
For our GPS solutions we’ll make use of the GPSDirect NEMA Sensor Driver which was developed by Michael Chourdakis at TurboIRC.COM Software & Research. It takes any COM-connected GPS receiver and turns it into a Windows Location Sensor. Though this software was originally created for the Windows 7 Sensor API, it also works with the Windows 8 Location API for both Windows Store Apps and desktop applications. Both a 32-bit and 64-bit driver are provided.
Almost all general purpose GPS units are capable of emitting NMEA 0183 sentances over a serial port. NMEA stands for the National Mareine Electronics Association, and standard 0183 defines a communication protocol for marine devices such as sonar, echosounders, GPS receivers, and its predecessor, LORAN. The NMEA protocol is extremely simple, with messages transmitted in plain ASCII text in the form of 'sentances'. These devices emerged in the days when serial ports were the primary means of interacting with computer systems, and as such even modern devices with only USB connectors still provide NMEA output via a virtual COM port by embedding a USB-to-serial adapter internally. Nearly every USB-connected GPS receiver, commonly referred to as a GPS 'mouse', is really a serial port device.
This USB-based GPS receiver shows up as a virtual serial port in Windows.
GPSDirect is basically a bridge solution. It's middleware that takes a GPS device connected on a virtual COM port and connects it to the Windows Location Sensor. To date, not many manufacturers provide a true sensor driver for their GPS receivers, and GPS receivers that are integrated into tablet and ultrabook platforms are still fairly rare. For those wishing to develop precision location-aware apps-- or even just use them-- GPSDirect represents the best way to make that possible when a native GPS sensor is not available on the system. The down side is that, being middleware, you have to jump through some extra hoops to use it and you can't expect to plug in your GPS receiver and have everything just work. The rest of Part 1 discusses those hoops in detail.
Download and install GPSDirect
From the GPSDirect download page, select the 32- or 64-bit driver as is appropriate for your system. The GPSDirect download is a simple EXE file. There is no installer, nor is there a driver installation procedure (but see 'Running GPSDirect', below), however GPSDirect does unpack a few support files when it executes so I like to put it in a separate folder to keep things tidy. For this example, create a 'GPSDirect' folder inside of your Documents folder and move the executable there.
Running GPSDirect
GPSDirect is a desktop application which includes a user mode driver that installs itself upon demand. Double-click to execute the binary. Windows 8 may ask you to enable location services as shown in the screenshot below. If so, click on 'yes', since location-based applications won't work without the location service.
You will then be presented with the GPSDirect user interface window, a portion of which is shown below. Before the driver can install itself, it has to know which COM port your GPS is connected to, and at what speed it communicates. These parameters are set in the main user interface.
Note that drop-down menu for the connection speed only goes up to 19200 baud, but you can type any value in there. I have used external GPS data loggers that communicate at 115200 baud successfully with GPSDirect. In addition to COM ports, GPSDirect can also communicate with a network-connected GPS device. In this case, enter an IP address for the NMEA source and a port number in the Baud Rate/Port Number box. GPSDirect also includes a simulator mode which sets a random latitude, longitude, and altitude, and then changes them slightly every second.
Select the COM port that your GPS is attached to, provide the baud rate, and then hit 'Install' to install the driver. This step will require administrator privileges since this is the point where the driver is actually installed on your system. If this is the first time you have run GPSDirect, you will also be presented with a Windows Security dialog, asking if you want to install the sensor device. To prevent this dialog from coming up again in the future, you can check the box to always trust software from the author.
Once the driver installs, the GPSDirect driver will start showing up as a location sensor in Device Manager.
Monitoring GPSDirect
When you first run GPSDirect, meaning after you have set your port settings and hit 'Install', you may not see much output. Until your GPS device has started tracking satellites, in fact, it may not appear that GPSDirect is doing anything at all but once your receiver starts acquiring signals the display will update.
The upper right window lists the satellites that have been found by the device, showing their almanac information (satellite number, azimuth, and elevation), and the strength of the signal being received. The lower frame shows the time reported by the GPS receiver, and once a fix is obtained it will display:
- latitude and longitude in decimal degrees (X and Y)
- altitude in meters (Z)
- speed in knots
- bearing in decimal degrees
- DOP (Dilution of Precision, mathematical limits on accuracy due to the current satellite geometry)
It will also periodically print one of the NMEA sentance that was received from the device.
The GPSDirect window will contnue to update as long as the GPS receiver is on and active, though if signal reception is lost it may blank out again until satellite signals can be reaquired.
You do not need to keep this window open. You can close it using the red X (there is no 'close' button) and if you later want to monitor your device, you can simply run GPSDirect again. The driver will remain active until you explicitly uninstall it.
Stopping GPSDirect
Stopping GPSDirect really means uninstalling the driver, and that is done with the 'Uninstall' button. When you press this, GPSDirect closes the COM port, uninstalls the driver, and exits.
Things to keep in mind
- As with any system where an external device is connected to a computer, the stability of the system is dependant on the stability of the connection. If a cable comes out, the GPS receiver powers off, or if the computer goes to sleep, GPSDirect may or may not be able to seamlessly continue. It may be necessary to explicitly uninstall the driver and reinstall to get things working again.
- COM ports do not support multiple connections. If GPSDirect is using a COM port, other software will not be able to, and visa-versa.
- Your virtual COM port will change if you move your USB-connected device between ports. Always verify in device manager that your device is attached to the port that you think it is.
Drivers Dis-transics Port Devices List
In Part 2, we'll hook up an external GPS using GPSDirect.
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Drivers Dis-transics Port Devices For Sale
Common serial port names are /dev/ttyS0, /dev/ttyS1, etc. Thenaround the year 2000 came the USB bus with names like /dev/ttyUSB0 and/dev/ttyACM1 (for the ACM modem on the USB bus). Multiport serialcard used somewhat differnt names (depending on the brand) such as/dev/ttyE5.
Since DOS provided for 4 serial ports on the old ISA bus:COM1-COM4, or ttyS0-ttyS3 in Linux, most serial ports on the newer PCIbus used higher numbers such as ttyS4 or ttyS14 (prior to kernel2.6.13). But since most PCs only came with one or two serial ports,ttyS0 and possibly ttyS1 (for the second port) the PCI bus can now usettyS2 (kernel 2.6.15 on). All this permits one to have both ISAserial ports and PCI serial ports on the same PC with no nameconflicts. 0-1 (or 0-3) are reserved for the old ISA bus (or thenewer LPC bus) and 2-upward (or 4-upward or 14-upward) are used forPCI, where older schemes are shown in parentheses . It's not requiredto be this way but it often is.
If you're using udev (which puts only the device you have on yourcomputer into the /dev directory at boottime) then there's an easy wayto change the device names by editing files in /etc/udev/. Forexample, to change the name of what the kernel detects as ttyS3 towhat you want to name it: ttyS14, add a line similar to this to/etc/udev/udev.rules
BUS'pci' KERNEL'ttyS3',NAME='ttyS14'
Drivers Dis-transics Port Devices Charlotte
On-board serial ports on motherboards which have both PCI and ISAslots are likely to still be ISA ports. Even for all-PCI-slotmotherboards, the serial ports are often not PCI. Instead, they areeither ISA, on an internal ISA bus or on a LPC bus which is intendedfor slow legacy I/O devices: serial/parallel ports and floppy drives.
Devices in Linux have major and minor numbers. The serial portttySx (x=0,1,2, etc.) is major number 4. You can see this (and theminor numbers too) by typing: 'ls -l ttyS*' in the /dev directory. Tofind the device names for various devices, see the 'devices' file inthe kernel documentation.
There formerly was a 'cua' name for each serial port and it behavedjust a little differently. For example, ttyS2 would correspond tocua2. It was mainly used for modems. The cua major number was 5 andminor numbers started at 64. You may still have the cua devices inyour /dev directory but they are now deprecated. For details seeModem-HOWTO, section: cua Device Obsolete.
For creating the old devices in the device directory see:
Dos/Windows use the COM name while the messages from the serial driveruse ttyS00, ttyS01, etc. Older serial drivers (2001 ?) used justtty00, tty01, etc.
The tables below shows some examples of serial device names. TheIO addresses are the default addresses for the old ISA bus (not forthe newer PCI and USB buses).
For more info see the usb subdirectory in the kernel documentationdirectory for files: usb-serial, acm, etc.
On some installations, two extra devices will be created,/dev/modem for your modem and /dev/mouse for amouse. Both of these are symbolic links to the appropriatedevice in /dev.
Historical note: Formerly (in the 1990s) the use of/dev/modem (as a link to the modem's serial port) wasdiscouraged since lock files might not realize that it was really say/dev/ttyS2. The newer lock file system doesn't fall intothis trap so it's now OK to use such links.
Inspect the connectors
Inspecting the connectors may give some clues but is often notdefinitive. The serial connectors on the back side of a PC areusually DB connectors with male pins. 9-pin is the most common butsome are 25-pin (especially older PCs like 486s). There may be one9-pin (perhaps ttyS0 ??) and one 25-pin (perhaps ttyS1 ??). For two9-pin ones the top one might be ttyS0.
If you only have one serial port connector on the back of your PC,this may be easy. If you also have an internal modem, a program likewvdial may be able to tell you what port it's on (unless it's a PnPthat hasn't been enabled yet). A report from setserial (atboot-time or run by you from the command line) should help youidentify the non-modem ports.
If you have two serial ports it may be more difficult. You could haveonly one serial connector but actually have 2 ports, one of whichisn't used (but it's still there electronically). First check manuals(if any) for your computer. Look at the connectors for meaningfullabels. You might even want to take off the PC's cover and see ifthere are any meaningful labels on the card where the internal ribbonserial cables plug in. Labels (if any) are likely to say something like'serial 1', 'serial 2' or A, B. Which com port it actually is willdepend on jumper or PnP settings (sometimes shown in a BIOS setupmenu). But 1 or A are more likely to be ttyS0 with 2 or B ttyS1.
Drivers Dis-transics Port Devices Gigabit
Send bytes to the port
Labels are not apt to be definitive so here's another method. Ifthe serial ports have been configured correctly per setserial, thenyou may send some bytes out a port and try to detect which connector(if any) they are coming out of. One way to send such a signal is tocopy a long text file to the port using a command like: cpmy_file_name /dev/ttyS1. A voltmeter connected to the DTR pin (seeSerial-HOWTO for Pinout) will display a positive voltage as soon asyou give the copy command.
The transmit pin should go from several volts negative to a voltagefluctuating around zero after you start sending the bytes. If it doesn't(but the DTR went positive) then you've got the right port but it'sblocked from sending. This may be due to a wrong IRQ, -clocal beingset, etc. The command 'stty -F /dev/ttyS1 -a' should showclocal (and not -clocal). If not, change it to clocal.
Another test is to jumper the transmit and receive pins (pins 2 and 3of either the 25-pin or 9-pin connector) of a test serial port. Thensend something to each port (from the PCs keyboard) and see if it getssent back. If it does it's likely the port with the jumper on it.Then remove the jumper and verify that nothing gets sent back. Notethat if 'echo' is set (per stty) then a jumper creates an infiniteloop. Bytes that pass thru the jumper go into the port and come rightback out of the other pin back to the jumper. Then they go back inand out again and again. Whatever you send to the port repeats itselfforever (until you interrupt it by removing the jumper, etc.). Thismay be a good way to test it as the repeating test messages halt whenthe jumper is removed.
As a jumper you could use a mini (or micro) jumper cable (sold in someelectronic parts stores) with mini alligator clips. A small scrap ofpaper may be used to prevent the mini clips from making electricalcontact where it shouldn't. Metal paper clips can sometimes be bentto use as jumpers. Whatever you use as a jumper take care not to bendor excessively scratch the pins. To receive something from a port,you can go to a virtual terminal (for example Alt-F2 and login) andtype something like 'cp /dev/ttyS2 /dev/tty'. Then at another virtualterminal you may send something to ttyS2 (or whatever) by 'echotest_message > /dev/ttyS2'. Then go back to the receive virtualterminal and look for the test_message. See Serial Electrical Test Equipment for more info.
Connect a device to the connector
Another way to try to identify a serial port is to connect somephysical serial device to it and see if it works. But a problem hereis that it might not work because it's not configured right. A serialmouse might get detected at boot-time if connected.
You may put a device, such as a serial mouse (use 1200 baud), on a portand then use minicom or picocom to communicate with that port. Thenby clicking on the mouse, or otherwise sending characters with thedevice, see if they get displayed. It not you may have told picocomthe wrong port (such as ttyS0 instead of ttyS1) so try again.
Missing connectors
If the software shows that you have more serial ports than youhave connectors for (including an internal modem which counts as aserial port) then you may have a serial port that has no connector.Some motherboards come with a serial port with no cable or externalserial DB connector. Someone may build a PC from this and decide notto use this serial port. There may be a 'serial' connector and labelon the motherboard but no ribbon cable connects to its pins. To usethis port you must get a ribbon cable and connector. I've seendifferent wiring arrangements for such ribbon cables so beware.
If you don't use devfs (which automatically creates such devices) anddon't have a device 'file' that you need, you will have to create it.Use the mknod command or with the MAKEDEV shell script.Example, suppose you needed to create ttyS0:
Drivers Dis-transics Port Devices Lucie
ttyS0 you would just type:If the above command doesn't work (and you are the root user), lookfor the MAKEDEV script in the /dev directory and run it.
This handles the devices creation and should set the correct permissions.For making multiport devices see Making multiport devices in the /dev directory.
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