8051 is half duplex or full duplex while communicating serially..if its half duplex then can we configure it to function as a full duplex
"But whatever you do, the UART is always [full] duplex, even if the specific connection may make the full system being half duplex."
Even with a a hardware connection capapble of full-duplex (ie, completely separate transmit & receive paths), you might use a half-duplex software protocol over the link.
eg, XMODEM will not transmit its next packet until the previous one has been acknowledged...