Programming :: How To Monitor The Applet Development

The embedded hardware is working nicely, and even the antique laptop is now running smoothly using tinycore linux. The device pumps out packets of data at roughly 128 bytes/second (two packets, one 56 bytes, the other 72, alternating every 500mS).

I'd like to create a more general purpose application for monitoring the data being logged. It is a simple matter to have the back-end application write a log file of incomming data, or be a little more sophisticated and just write out changes from the previous packet. The difficulty is that the existing curses-based cli application reads directly from the serial port and can only be run from one place at a time. Once data has been pulled off the port it's not available any more.

A database for logging the data is not necessary, as the application would mostly be used for auditing material consumption, not tracking minute-by-minute usage over any length of time.I could have the existing back-end app. write data to a file accessible through a web server, and allow interested parties to download the information. This would be greatly enhanced by a small front-end app. that can request the data and format it for a more sensible display. Alternatively, is there some way to open a socket (I'm out of my depth here) so a free-standing application could simply request the data, and do the front-end formatting? This presents problems in that it wouldn't be multi-platform capable.