RS232 Dev Board

A simple RS232 example project that takes all the power it needs from the serial port. Use it to power your microcontroller and communicate between serial port and microcontroller. Takes advantage of the fact that pc serial ports will accept 0-5V rather than the RS232 standard of around negative 10V to positive 10V. Very convenient - no external power required! Note that you may use either a 5.1V zener or a 5V regulator.
Another version, using a zener - I recently ordered a pcb for this one:
The thick blue lines represent a bus which contains all the important signals. I hope to update this again once I try my board.