Com0Com — Null Modem Emulator
The right tool makes any job easy. Thats why I like posting about when I find the perfect tool for a job. In this case, I was testing out a serial translator program I wrote yesterday for a former coworker. The program I wrote takes in one stream of bytes from one com port and outputs another, translated stream of bytes to another com port.
To avoid using three computers and two cables for testing, I needed to connect two virtual com ports to each other on one computer. Com0Com to the rescue!
It installed quickly and painlessly, was intuitive and easy to use, and did exactly what I needed. I input characters using a terminal emulator to one virtual com port, and they magically came out of the virtually connected com port, then went through my program, and out a real com port to my laptop, which saw the translated stream just as expected.
January 21st, 2009 at 12:42:03 pm
Alternative solution from AGG Software, but more special for software developers http://www.virtual-null-modem.com