Spy & Monitor App's

Listen is a Data Link monitor designed to assist debugging & troubleshooting serial communications links. Listen utilizes standard Windows COM port drivers to tap into RS-232 transmit signals for monitoring bi-directional communications between two devices. Data is captured and displayed in real-time, using custom defined character fonts & colors. Filters may be applied to the data and a trap buffer, (triggered on a character string comparitor), may be used to isolate intermittent faults. One of the unique features of Listen is its ability to display non-printing characters in a variety of formats to suit the user. Each character may be overridden to display a unique text string representing its value. Listen's highly customizable features makes it an ideal solution for field service applications utilizing portable PCs as well as for in-house engineering R&D applications.

Listen32 is a 32-bit version of Listen which includes all the above features plus the ability to launch and monitor communications from separate Win32 processes without being physically connected to the serial cable. It operates much like the Socket Spy applications, hooking the communications API within Windows by launching a target application using the Win32 Debugger API. Listen32 also provides extended buffering operation for longer term data collection and the ability to transmit byte strings to a device for testing protocol response.

The Socket Spy programs are Trace/Debug utilities used for monitoring WINSOCK API references between an application and the Windows Sockets Dynamic Link Library. Socket Spy/16 operates under Windows 3.1 and is fully compatible with the WinSock Ver 1.1 standard. Socket Spy/32 runs under Windows '95 or NT and is compatible with both WinSock 1.1 and WinSock 2.0. Socket Spy operates by hooking calls made to the dll and displaying API calls and argument data as they occur in real-time. Under Windows 3.1x, Socket Spy works unintrusively, monitoring all calls made to the winsock dll. The 32-bit version allows a target application to be launched from within the spy window and operates using the built-in Win32 debugger API. Neither version of the Socket Spy requires any modification to the target application.

The Socket Spy applications are designed to trace all API calls made to the installed winsock dll. Arguments passed to the dll, values returned from the dll, (including callback notifications), and all read/write data passed through each socket is available for capture, display, and browsing. Socket Spy provides filtering capabilities to selectively monitor certain socket operations, and a dedicated trap buffer is available to help isolate design problems by taking a "snapshot" of the trace buffer based on the condition of a user-defined logic trigger.

WinTECH offers a very popular source code toolkit which provides an easy platform for developers to extend the functionality of the above designs. The "Adapt-a-Spy" package places your customized logic between a running application and the Windows Sockets dll. Interjected into the flow of execution of a third-party application, your program now has control of all data passed to & from the communications system. For additional information, select the hyper-link associated with the toolkit name above.