UART-to-TCP Bridge

Overview 

The UART-to-TCP bridge feature of the TCP/IP Demo App transmits all incoming TCP bytes on a socket out of the PIC's UART module and all incoming UART bytes out of a TCP socket. 

Instructions 

1. Compile your MPLAB project and program the demo board.
2. Connect the RS-232 port on your demo board to an RS-232 port on your computer. On a newer computer you may need an RS-232 to USB converter cable. On your computer, open a terminal program (such as HyperTerminal). Set it to use the COM port you connected your board to, at 19200 baud, with 8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit, and no flow control.
3. Connect the programmed demo board to a computer either directly or through a router. For Ethernet, a direct connection may require a crossover cable; for WiFi, the board may need to be in AdHoc mode to establish a direct connection.
4. Determine the IP address of the demo board. This can be done several different ways.
   1. If you are using a demo setup with an LCD display (e.g. Explorer 16 or PICDEM.net 2), the IP address should be displayed on the second line of the display.
   2. Open the Microchip Ethernet Device Discoverer from the start menu. Press the "Discover Devices" button to see the addresses and host names of all devices with the Announce Protocol enabled on your network. You may have to configure your computer's firewall to prevent it from blocking UDP port 30303 for this solution.
   3. If your board is connected directly with your computer with a crossover cable:
      1. Open a command/DOS prompt and type 'ipconfig'. Find the network adaptor that is connected to the board. The IP address of the board is located in the 'Default Gateway' field
      2. Open up the network status for the network adaptor that connects the two devices. This can be done by right clicking on the network connection icon in the network settings folder and select 'status' from the menu. Find the 'Default Gateway' field.
5. Open a command/DOS prompt. Type "telnet ip_address 9761" where ip_address is the IP address that you got from step 4.

6. As you type characters in the command prompt, they will be transmitted over the Telnet TCP port to the PIC, and then transmitted out of the PIC's UART to appear on your terminal program. As you type characters in the terminal program, they will be transmitted to the PIC through the UART module, and then retransmitted over the TCP connection to appear in the command prompt Telnet session.