As most fo you know I do a lot of work involving communications between devices using TCP/IP.

I have posted on my web site (www.the-gordons.net) in the download section (Follow the link at the bottom of the main page) some interesting tools under a heading called iRule. I am playing around with the iRule system as my family wants what I have on the Pronto on an iPad or iPod. Took me about a week to duplicate what I have on my 9800, but remember my system involves a control processor that does all the heavy lifting (RS232 TCP, etc.). Also I really like the Pronto better for many reasons, including foremost, the hard keys. Its just nice to see the expressions on peoples faces when I show them complete home control on an iPad with interesting graphics.

The three tools are as follows:

(1) IRGen: The program will generate IR patterns in several different formats based upon tables written in a variant of the "irp" notation. A whole library of tables is provided and it is easy to add more once you understand what the device/Remote protocol is. The program and irp file format is fully documented. The irp format (or a variant thereof) is what is used in John Fine's makehex program.

(2) Gateway Debuig aid: This can be used to tell you what the Pronto is sending out over TCP. It runs on a PC on the same network as the Pronto. In its control file you specify the Port number(s) for the traffic of the device(s) you wish to debug. [Note: You may have to make some adjustments to Windows if you use port 80, as certain windows services lock up port 80 at windows startup]. In the Pronto you specify (Change) the IP address of the device you want to communicate with to the IP address of the PC running the tool. You then just run your Pronto application. The Debug aid will show you all traffic seen at the designated port and it can watch several ports at the same time. You can specify a single string to be returned (per port), and whether or not the connection is to be persistent or shutdown each time (per port). The tool allows you to look at the text sent in various formats: Ascii, Hex, and "Com". The com format is Ascii with all control characters (0-31, 128-255) shown as mnemonics ( (CR) for a carriage return (hex 0D), (LF) for a line feed (Hex 0A), (xx) for those above 127 where xx is the hex representation of the Character e.g. (3F to FF)).

The last program is called the TCPIP Explorer. It allows you to set up a table defining the communications protocol being used and then to send test strings to the device you wish to explore. This is a work in progress and needs to be made much more flexible in providing for dynamic construction of strings to send, etc. The program diagnoses every stage of the communications socket state (Connect, DataArrival, SendProgress, SendComplete, Close, Error). And displays the response in any one of several formats (ASCII, HEX, "COM"). The program will also send a WOL (Wake On LAN) sequence upon command.

Using these tools I am able to figure out what a "Component" expects to see, what it returns, and I can check the Pronto transmission to see exactly what it is sending.

Feel free to ask questions. Feedback appreciated.