arduino + ethernet shield => communicate with a thrid party device

Using Arduino Networking, Protocols, and Devices
1

hello,

i've been using a special hardware peripheral that communicates with my PC for while. it exists in two versions either usb or serial. i am familiar with its propietry protocol.

instead of interacting with this hardware with my PC, i am thinking of using an arduino board along with a ethernet shield + connect this product to the arduino board to interact with this product through network.

most of the commands are generally short : below a couple dozen bytes
and the responses are generally small : a few bytes for most of them, about 500 bytes for the longest replies.

i've been playing with an arduino duelmilanove about 2 years ago. it was kinda fun, but expect my programing PC, i wasn't interfacing with anything back then.

i guess using the serial version of this product would be easier no? where should i connect it then ?
What would you recommend to achieve the communication with this device ? (i'm willing to drop the ethernet shield for first prototypes, but it'd really like network though)

thanks
fourchette

2

Your description of your gizmo is somewhat lacking, but the arduno with the w5100 ethernet shield can be configured as a web server and possibly as a telnet server. As a web server the arduino can take network request and send the desired info out its serial port, wait for a reply, and send the info received from the serial port back to the client. You just need the appropriate code.

3

zoomkat:
Your description of your gizmo is somewhat lacking

true. the third party device itself is not very relevant anyway.

i have seen a very interesting implementation ideas in O'Reilly Arduino Cookbook yesterday. i guess i'll try some of them then.

sorry if the question seems dumb but

assuming i connect this third party device to the arduino serial port

  • i program the web to device communication process (transforming HTTP for commands to this device, then convert device replies to HTTP replies served over ethernet)
    ==> how can i modify my arduino program without unplugin this third party device ?