Uhm, not quite sure what you mean? It's actually OK to download IO Ninja packages even without signing in to ioninja.com

Serial Terminal requires the capability org.jancy.io.serial, yes. But still, it doesn't stop users from downloading and running evaluation.

But wait, in your case, you have an active subscription, so everything should be unlocked and available. Please let me know if it's not the case and you have problems accessing some functionality...

try and see if everything works for you before purchasing; let me kno

Interestingly I can only download if I purchase ($35). I have a paid license for IONinja,

IO Ninja can work with any USB-to-Serial adapter via the Serial Terminal plugin.

As for other hardware Serial sniffers, we have plugins for EZ-Tap Pro/VersaTap and for any generic dual-COM tap.

You can run a free evaluation to try and see if everything works for you before purchasing; let me know if your evaluation is over and you need to extend it.

First, you can't pass both RS485 and TTL signals to the tap simultaneously; the RS232/RS485/TTL mode switch in the middle physically disconnects all lines except the selected interface.

However, you can utilize some unused DTR/DSR/CTS/DSR lines of the TTL section in the terminal block; voltage levels can be found in the specification:

Supported TTL logic levels: From 3.3V to 5V

As for the minimum pulse duration on the control lines -- the chip that we use guarantees reliable capture of serial traffic up to 1Mbps. But that's for the data lines; we couldn't find such guarantees for the control lines. Most likely, it's of the same order of magnitude. Another idea to reliably mark points in the log is to toggle the state of a control line instead of pulsing it.

I was wondering if "RS-485" control signals can be logged along TTL data signals. This is because I know what RS-232/422/423/485 signal specifications are & can be sure my signals are in range (eg +/- 30V)

There are no "specifications" given for signal voltage, etc, for the TTL inputs. I would like to be able to directly connect from my logic analyzer to the serial-tap, but without specifications on the input levels, etc I can't be sure I won't blow up the serial tap.

One related note: what are the minimum pluse durations so that the control signal changes are recorded in the log?

I was trying to find a solution that lets me have a nice data logger, with serial decode w/o having to fabricate an interface board to everyone happy.

One solution would be to connect any of the DTR/DSR/RTS/CTS lines of your Serial Tap to the box that would wiggle this line to mark such an event. Any changes of control/status lines are visible in the log and thus can be used to approximately find the times of your external events (thus reducing the amount of logged data for you to analyze).