Extras > White Paper

This white paper examines, in the form of questions and answers, Tibbo's programmable solution.

In a nutshell, what is your programmable solution?

It is a combination of PC software, an embedded OS (called TiOS), and Tibbo hardware that allows you to create a program in BASIC and then run it on select Tibbo external devices and embedded modules.

How is this different from existing Tibbo products?

The original line of Tibbo devices, such as the DS100 or EM100, offered specific functionality — seamless data routing between the network (Ethernet) and serial (RS232, 422, 485) "sides" of the device. Some people call this kind of product "serial-to-network converters", and some people call them "serial device servers". No matter how you call them, our products were designed for transparently connecting any serial device to the network.

Our programmable solution is much more than this. Instead of just sending the data from the serial side to the net and vice versa, you can now make our devices work exactly as you need them to — put the intelligence and logic required by your project right into our device.

And why is this useful? Why do you need to change the way Tibbo products work?

When you are building a product or a system you always face the need to add some custom functions. Adapting your serial device to network communication sometimes requires more than just converting serial data into "TCP/IP". What if, for instance, you want to be able to configure or monitor your machine through a web-based interface? A simple "serial device server" won't allow you to implement this functionality. But with our programmable products, you could write a simple BASIC program that does just that.

More importantly, with new BASIC programmability our devices are not longer confined to being just "network interfaces". In fact, in many cases a Taiko device, such as an embedded module, can be used as a central building block of your system, eliminating the need for another "main" CPU.