ICP DAS USA 8KE8 - Manual (Page 81)

Appendix C: VxComm technique
VxComm (“Virtual Communication Port”) is a technique that allows access to remote I/O
slots or RS-232 ports. There are two types of software interfaces that can be used to
access remote I/O modules and the COM ports of the 7188E/8000E series the first is serial
port interface and the second is the TCP/IP interface. For the serial port interface, we
provide a VxComm driver for Windows OS. It is used to create virtual COM ports to map to
I/O modules and COM ports of the 7188E and 8000E. After creating virtual COM ports, you
can easily upgrade serial devices to with Ethernet communication ability and the original
software only need to link to a virtual COM port. It doesn’t need any source code
modification.
Comparison of using Virtual COM Port and TCP Port to develop Ethernet application.
Use Virtual COM Port interface Use TCP Port interface
Programming
method Program has to Send and
Receive command via COM Port Program has to Send and
receive command via TCP Port
Extra Driver Need to install VxComm driver on
PC No
Platform Windows 98 /NT /2000 /XP All platforms
SDK provided DLL, ActiveX, LabView bundle
driver, InduSoft bundle driver,
OPC driver No ,program has to use DCON
Protocol directly to
communicate with I/O modlues
8430/8830/8KE4/8KE8 User’s manual, Jan 2005, Version 1.0, 8MS-002-10 ----- 81