Although devices can communicate directly if their Rx and Tx pins are connected with each other.
However to reduce noise interference and
increase transmission distance over wire the
voltage levels of logical 0 and 1 are changed.
This is usually implemented using a TTL
level conversion chip, called Max-232. this
chip accepts the converted high voltage values
and convert them to TTL logical values and
present them to microcontroller, it also
accepts the logical value from microcontroller
and converts it to high voltage levels for
transmission.
Before establishing a connection with a
device make sure if its using plain USART
communication, or using RS-232 level
conversion. All PCs having serial ports have
this level conversion on them. Therefore in
order to communicate with them you must have
a RS-232 compliant port. PIC-Lab-II
implements this. It has a DB-9 connector for
serial cable, the DB-9 connector is connected to Max-232 level converter and outputs of MAX-232 are
connected to microcontroller hardware module, pins RC6 and RC7.