TCP-Com is an extremely simple program however it is also extremely powerful and can be used to solve a wide variety of device interfacing and RS232 or TCP/IP communications problems including the following:

• Serial Device Server
• Virtual Com Port Driver for Networked RS232 Devices
• Virtual Com Port Driver for Networked IP Devices
• Virtual Serial Splitter Cable

Serial Device Server

A Serial Device Server (also sometimes called a terminal server) is a hardware device that connects a serial instrument (balance, barcode scanner, PLC, serial terminal, etc.) to a network and provides an I/O path to the device through a TCP/IP port. TCP-Com performs the same function as a serial device server except it is a software program that runs on a Windows PC and uses the serial ports installed in that PC and the PC's network connection.

You can configure TCP-Com to open up to 256 serial ports at a time and associate each serial port to a different TCP/IP port either as a TCP/IP client or as a server. A hardware based serial device server typically costs about $150 and provides only a single serial port. If you had 16 serial devices that you wanted to connect to a network, it would cost around $2400 for 16 serial device servers to do the job. You can purchase a new Windows PC with a built in network adapter for under $500. A 16 port serial adapter can also be purchased for around $500. For less than $1300, you can make your own 16-port serial device server using TCP-Com. Because TCP-Com can do its job in the background, you still have a PC that you can use for other tasks. Most serial device servers also only support a single TCP/IP connection at a time therefore TCP-Com has the added advantage that it will allow you to connect multiple clients to a single serial device. TCP-Com also has many advanced error recovery options that allow it to automatically recover from broken network connections making it much more fault-tolerant than most serial device servers on the market.

Virtual Com Port Driver for Networked RS232 Devices

Suppose that you have a serial device connected to a COM port on a PC in your network and you wanted to communicate with that device using a serial communications program running in a different PC than the one where the device is connected. You could accomplish this by running TCP-Com on the workstation where the device is connected and configuring it to run as a TCP/IP server opening the COM port that the device is connected to. You could then run a second copy of TCP-Com on a different PC in the network and configure it to create a Virtual COM port and connect as a TCP/IP client to the copy of TCP-Com running as the server in the PC where the device is connected. You could then use your serial communications program to open the Virtual COM port created by TCP-Com and when you do so, you would actually be communicating across your network directly with the device connected to the COM port on the other PC.

Virtual Com Port Driver for Networked IP Devices

This is the same use of TCP-Com as above except that it is communicating accross the TCP/IP or UDP network with directly networked devices and not with another PC running TCP-Com.

These directly networked devices could be instruments with direct TCP/IP connectivity such as industrial controllers, scales, etc. or they could be ANY Serial Device Server. Serial Device Servers are hardware boxes that connect RS232 serial devices on one side and have a TCP/IP connection on the other. They allow you to network your serial devices in the same way as TCP-Com in example (1) above.

Virtual Serial Splitter Cable

If you have an RS232 device connected to a com port on your Windows PC you can only connect to that com port with one software application. If you need to communicate with that device from 2 Windows applications you would have to use a "splitter cable" to make the RS232 data come in on 2 separate com ports. This would also require you to purchase another com port.

Interestingly you can actually use TCP-Com to make the RS232 device data on the one com port apprear on as many virtual com ports as you need. In this way TCP-Com acts as Virtual Serial Splitter, or "Y", Cable and allows all your Windows serial communications applications to access a device on just one com port! See diagram, above, for how it works.