Okay- I'm human... I want it all! In this instance:
I want to send some serial data (9600 baud).
I want the software to be really simple.
But I don't want to use the "serial out" pin, "TDX", "PD1".
I envision a #define at the head of my code telling the rest of the program which pin I want to send the serial data out on. I don't need handshaking. I'm happy with TTL signal levels. (As a first use of the software, I want to drive a ModernDevice.com LCD controller. It works fine on the serial out pin. The ReallySimpleSerial I want only needs to drive that controller via a different pin.)
Then, in the body of the program, I'm happy to "cut up the food", and send one byte at a time to a function. I'll take care of any inter- byte delays which might be good.
Has this wheel been invented? Are there reasons it can't be?
That looks very promising. I might be able to "just use it"... or, if it is allowed by those who gave it to me, I'd love to dig into the underlying code, and extract just the small part of it that I actually want. I don't, for instance, want any receive capabilities.
Can anyone tell me: Is the underlying code accessible? Is it "mere" Arduino C? Is the code open source, which I hope means that no one minds if I "lift" bits? (I suppose that's two questions... the obvious one, and does everyone interpret "open source" that way. I would intend to credit the source of "my" creation, by the way.)
The source code for SoftwareSerial is supplied with the arduino distribution. You will find it in the subdirectory: arduino-xxx/hardware/libraries/softwareSerial.
Most of the arduino code, SoftwareSerial included, is open source as per the GNU Lesser General Public License.
You could comment out the receive code if you wanted but its less than ten lines of code so may not be worth the trouble.