What are serial ports and how were they used in older computer systems?

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Saladsamurai
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I saw a book today called "Windows 7 for Developers" and it made curious: what exactly is a 'developer?' And what kind of background/ computer skills do you think would be necessary to read this book? (the answer will help me better understand what a developer does.)

thanks!
 

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A developer is a computer programmer that works on software and drivers for a given platform. As an example, when the iphone came out, apple released a developer tool kit for anyone that wants to make their own apps and games - and then sell it.

The tool kit contains everything you need from writing code, uploading it, debugging, a list of supported functions, and a comprehensive guide and manuals.

For Windows 7 it would be more advanced - perhaps a list of system calls and info on the Windows kernel and services.
 
Check out MSDN (Microsoft Developers Network) for a SDK (software developers kit) and DDK (device drivers kit) for Windows 7. Last time I used a DDK was for Windows NT. It included remote debugging that used two computers, one was the target system with the device driver, the other was the host system that had the debugger, compiler, and source code for the driver. The target system would breakpoint during driver loading, allowing the user to specify which driver to break upon driver startup. At that time (1990's), the two systems communicated via serial ports.
 
Jeff Reid said:
At that time (1990's), the two systems communicated via serial ports.

Ohhhh, serial ports. That's so quaint! :smile: