8250 as a Serial Interface
    The 8250 or a functionally equivalent "smart" device is the heart of a serial interface.
A brief discussion of its role in the transmission of serial data is facilitated by grouping
the ideas as hardware, firmware and software protocols.  It is quickly recognized that
these terms are used in this presentation as convenient labels.  It is also quickly
acknowledged that they may be miss used in the process of their usage.

        From a hardware protocol perspective, the items of interest deal with answering
         questions such as:
             What are the voltage values that define logic 1 or logic 0?
             How many wires are needed?
             Where are the connected and why? 

8250 Pinout
Hardware

         From a firmware protocol perspective, the items of interest deal with answering
questions that deal with the configuration of the 8250 itself.  Some example questions
that become significant at this point include:

             How many Stop bits?
             What is the baud rate?
             What ( if any) is the Parity?
             How many bits is the data character?
8250 Registers
8250 Transmitter & Receive Registers
Status and Interrupt Registers
8250 Divisor Latch
Baudrate
Modem Registers

        From the software  protocol view, the interest shifts to the actual formate of the
data message.  This leads to questions now include:
             Is a data character an ASCII character?  ( or Gray Code for example)
             Are there any characters that surround the data message?  (coma's for example)?
7 Bit ASCII Code