Eli Bendersky's website We have a component that has a UART interface, and we want to test a circuit involving this component. Something should talk to it via the UART.
So, we use a PC COM port that has a UART inside and transmits/receives through RS232. I downoaded the SDK for this component - C code that interfaces the COM port and sends the component some commands. But first, we need to check that the code transmits stuff at all.
So, today I connected my PC to a laptop via a COM-cross-cable and send some data from C code (the laptop received it using Hyperterminal). It's the first time I do something like this, and it's really, REALLY cool (refer to my earlier hardware-geekiness post). It's funny how I'm excited about it, I even feel a bit embarassed in-front of the coworkers :-P
Next, we'll really build a small circuit and connect the component via a RS232 transceiver to the COM port of the PC, and the C code I'm going to write (based on their SDK) will talk to the component. This is even cooler :-)