Liberty, SC—Sealevel Systems Inc. introduced Dec. 13 its new SeaLink family of serial device drivers, which it reports easily connect serial devices directly to an Ethernet network.
Liberty, SC— Sealevel Systems Inc. rea networks/wide area networks (LANs/WANs).
SeaLink products use industry-standard TCP/IP protocol, allowing almost any host to access serial ports as easily as if the ports were PC cards physically installed in the host. Available in eight-, four-, two- and one-port versions, each device’s ports can be individually configured via software as RS-232, RS-422 or RS-485. This enables connectivity to a variety of devices, including data acquisition/monitoring equipment, PLCs and retail/point-of-sale devices. Once connected to the network, these serial devices can be controlled and monitored over the Internet, if desired. SeaLink products are available as multi-interface RS-232/422/485, RS-422/485, or RS-232 only.
Based on a powerful, embedded microprocessor, SeaLink products are able to communicate over multiple ports at sustained rates of up to 230 kbps. Customization is available for offloading application-specific tasks, such as data collection to SeaLink, which allows the host to increase its performance by periodically uploading data. Several mounting options, including DIN rail, are available for SeaLink, allowing easy mounting close to target I/O devices.
Seagate adds that all its SeaLink products are simple to install and easy to configure. Included software works with a variety of operating systems, including Microsoft’s Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows ME, Windows 98/95, as well as Linux. Standard serial operating calls are transparently redirected to SeaLink, which operates as a virtual COM port, not only guaranteeing compatibility with most serial devices, but also enabling backward compatibility with existing code.
Founded in 1986, Seagate provides communications and I/O solutions for multiple platforms including PCI Bus, ISA Bus, PC Card (PCMCIA) and PC/104. Its other products include multi-port RS-232 and RS-422/485, high-speed Sync/Async, digital/relay I/O, and Solid Disk emulation. Sealevel also provides related software, technical support and customer service.
Control Engineering Daily News Desk
Jim Montague, news editor
[email protected]
