I've finally built my first 8051 project which I'm using as a test bed to learn more about microcontrollers. The code that I wrote sends some text to the PC via serial port (Using a Maxim max232 serial line driver).

My question is this: for some reason, when I tell the 8051 to send some text such as "gator" it doesn't come to the PC exactly as "gator". It comes more like "GAt0r".

Is my terminal emulator (hyperterm from win98) re-mapping characters on me or is the 8051 not sending what I told it? Is the max232 doing some conversion?

I've tried mov a,#'T' mov a,#'t' and mov a,#86 to load the character data, but I still don't get a 'T' to transmit.

Another question I have is how reliable serial comm with the 8051 is. Can I assume that if the 8051 sends a byte, the PC will receive the right data? Or should I validate that the data was receieved and re-transmit if not? I noticed that if I change the baud rate I'll get junk from the 8051. The baud rate must be exact to get valid data.

Is there any handshaking that I can do with the 8051 (xon/off or hardware)? Does the 8051 wait for the PC when trying to send a byte, or does it just throw the byte out whether or not a pc is there to receive it?

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.