how do i program the serial to communicate with a computer? what purpose does the serial serve? does it allow the mcu to display what its doin onto the computer screen?
To start the serial Port can serve you for some input output basically if you want to start up without having any other type of IO like display or keypad to be interfaced to your micro.
It will display whatever you will tell it to display...
I mean it will give whatever you will output programatically. You can see it on a computer using some terminal program like hyper terminal.
You can find many small programs to start up your basic serial communication or just follow the datasheet and configure the serial port of your MCU.
Suvidh