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Does a serial device know when it is being connected to or read from?
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 7:40 am
by aivarannamaa
I'm trying to get better understanding of serial communication. I think I understand the basics (
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/se ... cation/all), but I haven't found an explanation about what happens when a program connects to a device.
When I'm connecting to some MicroPython devices with Pyserial and start reading (without writing anything), I get some garbage and then comes the REPL banner and prompt. When I disconnect and connect again, I get the same garbage again. Does the device know I'm reading or does Pyserial send some handshaking/initialization data when I'm connecting?
The garbage happens also when I'm connecting with Putty, but there is less of it. Does it mean Putty is connecting differently or it tries to hide the garbage? There are some screenshots and more details here:
https://github.com/thonny/thonny/issues ... -547652188
Re: Does a serial device know when it is being connected to or read from?
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 8:40 am
by pythoncoder
It depends on the physical connection. A USB link does "know" if a connection exists. A UART link may or may not "know" depending on the electrical characteristics of the interface. A UART transmitter adopts a high state when idle. If the receiver line is pulled up the receiver has no way of detecting a connected transmitter until the transmitter changes the state of the line. On the other hand if the receiver line is pulled down it can in principle detect a connection: the receiver will see a "break condition" until the transmitter connects.
A USB connected MicroPython device draws its power from the interface so when you initially make the USB connection the device starts running. As you've discovered, vendor code on ESP8266 devices issues a burst of data at 75Kbps before MicroPython starts. Then the baudrate changes to 115K and the REPL appears. Hence the "garbage" encountered.
Re: Does a serial device know when it is being connected to or read from?
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 8:48 am
by aivarannamaa
Thank you for the reponse!
pythoncoder wrote: ↑Thu Oct 31, 2019 8:40 am
A USB connected MicroPython device draws its power from the interface so when you initially make the USB connection the device starts running.
The same garbage happens when I keep the cable connected and only disconnect and reconnect the software. Does this mean the device uses extra logic to "greet" the new connection?
Re: Does a serial device know when it is being connected to or read from?
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 10:08 am
by Roberthh
There is no "greeting". The ESP8266 sends when reset a short boot log ata baud rate of 74880 baud. Reading that at 115200 baud looks like garbage. Putty may treat that garbage different from Tonny. On my ESP8266, the boot text is as below. Nothing exiting.
Code: Select all
ets Jan 8 2013,rst cause:2, boot mode:(3,7)
load 0x40100000, len 31084, room 16
tail 12
chksum 0x5a
ho 0 tail 12 room 4
load 0x3ffe8000, len 1024, room 12
tail 4
chksum 0xb0
load 0x3ffe8400, len 824, room 4
tail 4
chksum 0x49
csum 0x49
rf cal sector: 1019
freq trace enable 0
rf[112] : 00
rf[113] : 00
rf[114] : 01
Re: Does a serial device know when it is being connected to or read from?
Posted: Thu Oct 31, 2019 12:06 pm
by Christian Walther
What could be happening is that opening the device in pyserial does something with the hardware handshake lines that causes the microcontroller to reset, hence you get the boot output on every new connection. (I don’t know the details offhand about how to configure that in pyserial and how the usual reset circuitry on ESP8266 boards is wired.)