
PERIPHERAL INTERFACING–III 11-37
l Converters are needed for TTL to RS232 level conversion and vice versa.
l RS-232 connectors have 25 pins, but 9 pins are sufficient and so most computers are
equipped only with DB-9 connectors.
l Two terms commonly used in serial communications are DTE and DCE.
l There are a number of handshaking signals in the RS-232 protocol.
l There are many chips used as serial communication interfaces, but the chip discussed
here is the USART 8251.
l This chip caters to both synchronous and synchronous communications.
l The method of programming this chip is to write into mode and command words.
l Direct memory access ...