Digital Caliper Output

Circuit Cellar Ink had an article on interfacing these, in the December 1990 issue.
Basically, and this is very brief from a fading memory, there is a data line, a clock line
and a control line plus common. I believe the control line switches between "read" and
"hold"; the data comes out serially (read the data line when the clock line tics) with
the digits in BCD.

I'd think it would be quite easy as a PIC project to convert to RS232 for serial input to
a PC. The article, however, used a proprietary Single Board Computer, which would have
put the cost over $200.00 per axis.

All of the Chinese calipers I've seen have the data connector under a little lid similar to the
one covering the battery.....

/mark