Communicating easily with Max 6 – the [serial] object
As we already discussed in Chapter 6, Sensing the World – Feeling with Analog Inputs, the easiest way to exchange data between your computer running a Max 6 patch and your Arduino board is via the serial port. The USB connector of our Arduino boards includes the FTDI integrated circuit EEPROM FT-232 that converts the RS-232 plain old serial standard to USB.
We are going to use again our basic USB connection between Arduino and our computer in order to exchange data here.
The [serial] object
We have to remember the [serial] object's features. It provides a way to send and receive data from a serial port. To do this, there is a basic patch including basic blocks. We are going to improve it progressively all along this subchapter.
The [serial] object is like a buffer we have to poll as much as we need. If messages are sent from Arduino to the serial port of the computer, we have to ask the [serial] object to pop them out. We are going to do...
