... Serial may sound like a tasty breakfast food, but its actually quite different. The word serial means "one after the other." For example, a serial killer doesn't stop with one murder, but stabs many people one after the other. Serial data transfer is when we transfer data one bit at a time, one right after the other. ...
Well if your question is serious, then it's called serial data because one bit at a time is sent on a single signal wire. That is in contrast to other ways of communicating where multiple bits are all available at the same time on multiple signal wires, often called parallel data.
It is funny how ladyada is deliberately insesiteive when he is formulating the example.
Aparently Shrodinger was not dead serious and he never noticeed the problem with his explanation. If I remember rightly, some theatrical plays that had to use that example, deliberately changed it, to make it more amenible (do not quote me on this).
Does anybody knows of other similar 'original' ways to explain tecnical things?
It is funny how ladyada is deliberately insensitive when he is formulating the example.
If you say so. A lot of engineers and scientists have a rather odd sense of humor, and I think that's what you are seeing here. I don't see either Schrodinger or LadaAda as insensitive, because they are simply stating analogies and or ways to think about something. Schrodinger didn't really kill any cats (as far as I know), and Lady Ada isn't suggesting that you become a serial killer to better understand serial communications. They are GOOD examples because they are shocking enough to stick in your memory...
Lada Ada is actually a woman, by the way. (I don't know whether that was a typing error or whether you actually didn't know this...)
my appologies i thought the software serial is just to help use the Tx and Rx pins on the bored .. i didnt know that it can turn the gpio pins to serial pins .. am a bit confused on the topic to be honest ..
i read somewhere yesterday that you can turn the gipo pins to serial in , but can you use them as serial out as well ?? the reason why am asking is the arduino i have has only oen pair of TX and Rx pins.
an am trying to get it hooked to an Xbee chip which is serial and an LCD which is serial also.
if u know how to turn the pins to serial please post an example or at least url, i look into software serial more .. thank you
thank you for replaying, another quick qustion .. let say i wanted to send data to a serial LCD using any gernal perpouse input out put pin, can i do that or do i need a TTL to Rs232 converter then i can send the data out ?
bare with me am a biggner here, and thank you for replaying.
It would depend on the serial LCD -- whether it uses RS232 voltage levels or TTL voltage levels. In my experience, most use TTL voltage levels. Look at the specification sheet for the LCD.
If the LCD uses TTL serial, then you should be able to connect the Arduino pins directly to the LCD.
