every car sold in the United States since 1996 and in Europe since 2001 comes equipped with a connector known as an OBD-II ...

[Alex Sidorenko] has built an open source OBD-II Adapter which provides a serial interface using the ELM327 command set and supports all OBD-II standards. We featured [Alex]’s inexpensive PIC ...

OBD-II became the mandatory I/O diagnostic port on cars starting around 1996 in the US. Considering that the interface consists of a couple of I/O lines, serial/usb adapters have been ridiculously ...

The check engine light (CEL) comes on when the on-board diagnostics second generation system (OBD II) detects an emission system problem. And yes, you can legally turn off the CEL yourself.