Hi Guys,

Malc_c and myself are tinkering with a little project and while he's attacking the hardware side, im looking at the communication side of things and could do with a bit of info for this:

the software on the PC (Not written by us, but freely available for people to use) uses the serial port to communicate to the external circuitry and the way it toggles things is by using the RTS and DTR pins setting them either high or low.

Now my question is we want to setup a PIC18F via USB to be the toggle so thought the CDC comms would be an ideal springboard and I was wondering if when the pic is setup cia CDC comms can the USB detect the RTS/DTR signals? as the programs on the PC dont actually send 'data' but just use those 2 pins to toggle pins on an external device.

Reason we want to use USB is for new machines (ie laptops/netbooks etc) that dont have parallel or serial ports, but still be able to utilise the software as there are quite a few differrent programs that all do the same thing (basically trying to bring the 21st century to the masses LOL!!!! )

Many thanks in advance,

Mark.