I wish it was as simple as Interrupt 14H.  The bitter truth is that
    what should be the simple act of receiving serial data on a P.C., is a
    nightmare.  Interrupt 14H which is what the bioscom function is based
    on will only work as expected on P.C.'s with an IBM-compatible BIOS.

    On other systems, it just doesn't work.  One is almost forced to write
    an assembler routine that talks directly with the port.  The Int 14H
    and the bioscom function don't even set up interrupt vectors so one is
    forced to use lower speeds to keep from missing data.

There are assorted TSR programs for DOS that turn Int14h into a reasonably
working, interrupt driven serial port, instead of the cripled crock it
starts as in a standard PC bios.  Check simtel20 mirrors.  I think I wrote
the first of these in 1982 or there abouts, but that one is probably
written in the MIT 8086 cross assembler (not much use anymore?) and better
things have been written since...

(There followed a bunch of comm programs like kermit with very nice serial
drivers of their own, ignoring the existance of int14h.  Then along came
networks and such, and network OS's started putting their remote serial
port APIs on int14.  A program you write using int14 should be able to
communicate using serial, tcp, netbios, IPX, and others, depending on
which TSR is running.)

BillW