How to write program for Serial and USB which connect to hardware?

[Guest]

I am new to hardware programming.

I need to write a program for reading data from Card Reader which connects
to the PC windows 2000/XP OS through Interfacing The Serial / RS-232 Port /
USB / Bluetooth / Infrared.

May I ask does serial port equal to com port?

The program needs to read and write data of the smart card which places on
top of the card reader. The card reader has serveral models, they support
Serial / RS-232 Port / USB / Bluetooth / Infrared.

After reading the data, the data will be passed to server's database through
internal network.

On the other hand, the program can write data to the card through card
reader.

Now, I want to know

Which programming language, SDK and IDE should I use? The program is only
running on windows OS.

Languages: C++ / VC++ / VC.net / C# / J2SE

IDE: VC++ 6.0 / Borland C++ Builder / VS.net

I downloaded a Serial SDK from http://home.arcor.de/groschh/SerToolInfo.htm,
but how can I use it?

Any online tutorial, code sample or open source project are available?

Please advise.

 

[KM]

Tom,

Any particular reason why you are asking these questions in Windows XP Embedded newsgroup?
You may get more luck posting to
microsoft.public.development.device.drivers
microsoft.public.windowsxp.device_driver.dev
microsoft.public.win32.programmer.kernel

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Tom,

Is this in any relation to Windows XP Embedded?
Anyhow for accessing USB devices look at the samples in DDK.

For accessing any COM port use CreateFile for obtaining handle to port.
And since opening initializing and read write to port is very easy trough standard Win32 functions you will non need any open source
code.

Also use http://groups.google.com/ for searching on these topics, I guess that many people discussed this already.

Regards,
Slobodan