USB Streaming Data

I'm doing research for a project I'm about to begin which will involve streaming data through USB to a chip, and then having the chip process that data and send it elsewhere.

For instance, I'm going to have a user type in a message, say, "Hello". Upon hitting "Send", I'd like that message to be sent (in ASCII, although I guess I could convert it within the software. Ideally it would remain in ASCII though) to a chip, which would then perform the necessary calculations to make that display on an LCD screen, or perhaps on a segment display, or perhaps even tap out in morse code or something.

I read some posts on the various forums and did a quick search of the site for mentions of "USB", but I didn't find anything specifically tailored to what I'm trying to do. My question basically breaks down to:

  1. Is receiving information from a USB cable something that this device can do easily? Is it a built-in function?
  2. If not, how easy would it be to build such a function?
  3. Are there any alternative methods for getting information from a computer to this particular device that I have not explored, and should?

I appreciate any help you guys can give me. If I do end up working with this device, I definitely plan on joining the programming community in coming up with new things. It sounds like a really great device, I just want to know if it suits my particular requirements in this project. Thanks again.

Hello,

This is well within the capabilities of the Arduino. You can get several models that have USB ports on them. From the end user's standpoint it is a USB device, but in the PC/Mac a serial port is installed. This actually makes programming the computer side much easier, since serial ports are pretty straight forward and well documented on pretty much every development platform available.

1: Serial communication is a core feature of the device, and is very straight forward.

2: NA, see 1 :slight_smile:

3: You can also use a several other communication technologies that can easily be used: RF (ZigBee, etc), Ethernet (wired or wireless), Bluetooth (via serial) just to name a few.

You'll find a great group of people here, that I've found to be very welcoming and helpful, especially when it comes to helping those with far less skill and knowledge.

Thanks! That is very useful information. I can't wait to get mine!