Omega Four Port RS-232/422/485 to USB Adaptor Manuale Utente

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Appendix D - Asynchronous Communications  
OMG-USB-SER-4 
Page 14 
 
Appendix D - Asynchronous Communications 
Serial data communications implies that individual bits of a character are 
transmitted consecutively to a receiver that assembles the bits back into a 
character. Data rate, error checking, handshaking, and character framing 
(start/stop bits) are pre-defined and must correspond at both the transmitting 
and receiving ends. 
Asynchronous communications is the standard means of serial data 
communication for PC compatibles and PS/2 computers. The original PC was 
equipped with a communication or COM: port that was designed around an 8250 
Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART). This device allows 
asynchronous serial data to be transferred through a simple and straightforward 
programming interface. Character boundaries for asynchronous communications 
are defined by a starting bit followed by a pre-defined number of data bits (5, 6, 7, 
or 8). The end of the character is defined by the transmission of a pre-defined 
number of stop bits (usually 1, 1.5 or 2). An extra bit used for error detection is 
often appended before the stop bits.  
Remain Idle or
next start bit
Odd, Even 
      or
  Unused
STOP
 P
BIT
5 to 8 Data Bits
Idle state of
      line
1
0
1
1.5
2
 
Figure 4 - Asynchronous Communications Bit Diagram 
This special bit is called the parity bit. Parity is a simple method of determining if 
a data bit has been lost or corrupted during  transmission. There are several 
methods for implementing a parity check to guard against data corruption. 
Common methods are called (E)ven Parity or (O)dd Parity. Sometimes parity is 
not used to detect errors on the data stream. This is refereed to as (N)o  parity. 
Because each bit in asynchronous communications is sent consecutively, it is 
easy to generalize asynchronous communications by stating that each character 
is wrapped (framed) by pre-defined bits to mark the beginning and end of the 
serial transmis sion of the character. The data rate and communication parameters 
for asynchronous communications have to be the same at both the transmitting 
and receiving ends. The communication parameters are baud rate, parity, number 
of data bits per character, and stop bits (i.e. 9600,N,8,1).