Quote Originally Posted by dhouston View Post
It's not at all clear what you want to do. If you want to replace the laptop, then almost any PIC can send RS232 serial commands to the device. If you only wish to replace the USB-serial converters, there are some which are not clunky as well as single chip USB-serial converters
Thanks for the links. Yes basically I was wondering if there a simple way to use a PIC with a USB rather than using RS232 with a RS232 to USB converter.

For example, I currently use a cable release for my canon camera. This uses the DTR line to activate the shutter (ie DTR stays high for 10 seconds as controlled by the software on the PC). This is one example.

The other is a focuser.. this uses a handset with simple push buttons to control the motors direction. It would be great if you could remove the cable from the handset, plug it into a small box with a PIC inside and plug that into a laptop via USB and use the arrow keys on the keypad to control the motor..

Hope that makes things clearer ?

Malc