Serial monitor behaves differently on Windows vs Mac

Question

A sketch I wrote recently uses Serial.write to display the value read from a potentiometer. This sketch worked fine on my Mac and displayed correct values on the serial monitor. When I loaded the exact same sketch onto a Windows platform, instead of displaying the numerical value from the pot, I got ASCII characters.

I have limited access to the Windows machine (I'm teaching a group of fifth graders how to use the Arduino) and haven't been able to spend a lot of time debugging this issue. Any hints would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Kevin H.

billabott · Accepted Answer

Hi, KevinH. Glad to hear that you are teaching school kids.

Having an incorrect baud rate setting in the serial monitor can cause some strange results.

Posting your code would be helpful

OR you could look at http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/JoyStick to see how your method varies from it.

Otherwise, consider the following:

// read the analog input on pin 0:

int analogValue = analogRead(0);

// print it out in many formats:

Serial.println(analogValue); // print as an ASCII-encoded decimal

//Using

Serial.println(analogValue, DEC); // print as an ASCII-encoded decimal

// could easily solve the problem

Serial.println(analogValue, HEX); // print as an ASCII-encoded hexadecimal

Serial.println(analogValue, OCT); // print as an ASCII-encoded octal

Serial.println(analogValue, BIN); // print as an ASCII-encoded binary

My Authoratative Source.

At your service.

billabott · Answer

If you are interested in what the alpha/beta testers are going thru on our behalf you may peruse this Arduino Forum discussion .

billabott · Answer

You asked for persistent serial port monitor. I guess you could try Termite 2.6 to see if it will do the job.

Serial monitor behaves differently on Windows vs Mac

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