Free Software

Serial I/O Utilities, Data Collection Software, and Demos

TAL Technologies specializes in serial and TCP/IP communications and data acquisition software. Its SoftwareWedge products (WinWedge, DOSWedge, TCPWedge...) collect data from serial and TCP/IP ports and feed that data in real-time into any PC application program - Excel, Access, etc..

WinWedge and DOSWedge can be configured to collect data from any serial device, to parse, filter and format that data and feed it, as required, into your PC applications. You can also define serial output strings to your devices. TCPWedge is similar but the source of data is a TCP/IP network port address (Ethernet/Internet). Visit our WinWedge page for details and a downloadable PDF document.

Great job! I never thought it would take less than 15 minutes to get WinWedge to do what I needed. I have not been this satisfied with a software product in years!"

-Mark Soldini, Leaseplan

To be able to fully configure this software to your specific device and to test that the data collection occurs exactly as you want you really need to test our complete software package. For this reason we offer you an Unconditional 90 Day Money-Back Guarantee. Test it yourself - RISK FREE.

Below are some FREE serial utility programs and also a demo for a simplified version of WinWedge called BC-Wedge.

BC-Wedge Demo for Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP

Download Now (1.4 MB setup file)   BC-Wedge is a very easy to use software product designed for data collection from RS232 Bar Code Scanners.  This demo version of BC-Wedge collects data from COM1 to COM4 directly into any Windows application program. Note: BC-Wedge does not contain any of the advanced features of either the Standard or the Professional Edition of the WinWedge.

ComFile 30 day evaluation version

Download Now (1.5 MB setup file for Windows)   COMFile allows you to easily log RS-232 Serial data from any number of serial ports directly to disk files. Visit the ComFile Product Page for more information.

CE-Wedge Demo

Please select the version of CE-Wedge that best describes your CE Device: Pocket PC running Windows CE Version 3.x or later Handheld PC running Windows CE Version 2.11 Handheld PC running Windows CE Version 3.x Handheld PC running Windows CE Version 2000 (1.2 - 1.8 MB executable or zip file depending upon version)   CE-Wedge is an easy to use Software Wedge for Windows CE similar to our WinWedge or BCWedge products for Windows. It collects data from simple serial devices directly into any Windows CE application program including Pocket Excel, Pocket Word, etc...

Basic Inventory Tracking Example

Download Now (100 KB self extracting zip file)   Inventory Tracking Spreadsheet for Microsoft Excel. When used in conjunction with BC-Wedge or WinWedge this allows you to add to, remove from and look up products just by scanning a bar code (Keyboard Wedge interface, and manual data entry also supported)

Renamer Utility * Updated 5-9-2003 *

Download Now (2.1 MB setup file for Windows)   Renamer is a Windows program that will automatically rename a file or files at a regular time or date. Useful for people who want to save data to files continuously using the WinWedge or TCP/Wedge, but want to change the file name at the end of the each day. Now a 32 bit MDI application that minimizes to the system tray. Download the complete Visual Basic source code for Renamer - (37 KB zip File).

ShowPorts Utilities

Download Now (1.3 MB setup file for Windows)   Find out what COM ports are installed on your computer without using a screwdriver! Full Visual Basic 6 Source code is included! ShowPorts for DOS Utility - (20 KB executable file) Besides listing the available com ports, ShowPorts for DOS also displays the IRQ, port base addresses and what type of UART each port uses. This is a DOS program that should not be run inside the Windows environment. Refer to the read me file that is supplied with this program before running it.

Other Serial I/O Utilities

SendFile - (1.5 MB executable file) * New 11-26-2002 *
Allows you to quickly and easily send a file out of a serial Port.

ComDebug - (1.5 MB executable file) * New 11-1-2002 *
Allows you to quickly and easily send or receive data through the serial port. Extremely useful for testing the communications link between your PC and your serial device.

HideWindow * Updated 8-13-2003 *
A small Visual Basic program (with complete source code) that demonstrates how to show or hide any program's window. This program was designed originally as a tool that you can use to hide a running instance of WinWedge however it can also be used to show or hide any Windows program. Now includes example for Excel 97 and later.

TAL Serial Breakout Box Software - (1,303 KB executable file)
Turn any PC or Laptop with two serial ports into a serial breakout box (serial line analyzer). Snoop in on data that is sent or received through an RS232 serial cable between any two devices or computers. This is an excellent tool for diagnosing serial communications problems as well as for figuring out what is being sent and received between two devices. This program can also be used as a simple terminal to display data received on a single serial port. Designed for 32 bit Windows.

Complete C/C++ source code for a serial (RS232) terminal program - (118 KB zip file)
Learn how to perform serial communications functions from within your own custom C/C++ programs. This serial communications code sample was obtained from the Microsoft's Developer Network on-line

ASCII Chart Software for Windows - (6 KB executable file)
Displays a chart of values for each character in the ASCII character set.

LinkTest Utility - (220 KB executable file)
Software to test DDE commands. Allows you to send DDE commands to any Windows program that supports DDE.

Com-Key Utility - (23 KB executable file)
DOS TSR that allows you to define hot keys that send data out a serial data. Use Com-Key to dial or hang up a modem or send commands to any serial instrument from within any DOS program.

ComShow Utility (61 KB executable file)
Extremely useful DOS based serial I/O debug/diagnostic software. Can also be used as a simple data logger. ComShow displays all data received through a serial port so you can easily determine exactly what a device is transmitting. Unlike terminal programs, ComShow displays all characters that are received including carriage returns, linefeeds and all other control codes embedded in a serial data stream. ComShow also has output capabilities as well as the ability to manually set the states of all hardware handshaking lines.

PortStat Utility - (295 KB executable file)
Windows program that monitors and sets the status of any of the handshaking lines on a COM port. PortStat can be used to turn switches on and off under program control or can be used to monitor the voltage on any of the handshaking lines in a serial port. For example you could use PortStat to force another application, like Excel, to run a macro when the voltage on a serial port line changes state. You could also use it to turn a switch on or off directly from within Excel, Access or any other program that supports Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)

Tinyport direct hardware port I/O DLL for Windows NT - (111 KB executable file)

Win95IO direct hardware port I/O DLL for Windows 95 and 98 - (5 KB executable file)
Normally, Windows does not allow you to read or write hardware ports directly.
Win95IO is a freeware DLL that contains two functions called ReadPort and WritePort that allow you to get past this limitation in Windows 95 or Windows 98. Win95IO is provided with a simple Visual Basic program that demonstrates how to call the functions in the DLL.
TinyPort is a shareware device driver and DLL written by Manfred Keul that allows you to perform direct hardware port I/O under Windows NT. TinyPort consists of two files that must be copied to the \SYSTEM32 subdirectory. One is TINYPORT.SYS, the driver. The other is TINYPIO.DLL, a DLL that interfaces your programs to TINYPORT.SYS. Please refer to the Tinyport.wri file for more information on TinyPort.