RS-232 Programming port as an active interface

[Goose]

Hello all,

I've been lurking around the forums for quite a while and I can't say enough about them--very helpful!

My partner and I are working on a non-competition search and rescue unit for our undergraduate project at USNA. We're using the mini RC IFI controller from Innovation FIRST robotics as well as a mobile PC running Win95 (who thought anyone still had that, right?) and MATLAB r13. The mobile PC is connected to a USB webcam and an RS-232 wireless modem. The mobile PC receives commands through MATLAB from a base station with another modem. So now we need to make the connection between the mobile PC and the mini RC. We have an available RS-232 connection on the mobile PC and were hoping to connect that to the 9-pin serial programming port on the mini RC...

Has anyone accomplished something like this? I've heard rumors about the possibility but haven't had any luck tracking down the instructions, especially since I'm not as familiar with the programming as is my partner (I've been dealing with the image processing in MATLAB--he's working on interfacing an Aigilent optical mouse chip to the mini RC and is behind, so I'm doing the research on this topic). I'd appreciate any help or even some direction to where I can find a good source.

Thanks in advance!!
--Erik

[jgannon]

On Kevin Watson's website, he has written a "fully buffered, full-duplex, interrupt-driven serial port driver that can be used with either or both on-board serial ports" for the full-size and mini IFI controllers. Scroll down to where it says "EDU-RC Example Code", and I think you'll find precisely what you're looking for.