I avoid BASIC when I can, but, that's setting the port to: 9600 baud Even Parity 8 Data Bits 2 Stop Bits (I've just been burned by BASIC "cookie-cuttered" code that was copied and not edited intelligently, far too often; Similar to having 8 relays controlled by 8 copies of the same code, only the code for # 7 changes the status bits on relay # 3, and the code for # 8 changes the relay status by switching # 4 on and off. My app's talking this other application, trying to figure out what's going on - and of course it's "Always MY app" that's at fault, right? Of course, I cannot look at the BASIC app to see how nasty the code is, because it's "completely debugged and perfect code", right? ACK! Just call it a BASIC phobia if you want It's cost me money on several occasions, so I just usually don't deal with embedded controllers that use Process BASIC anymore. None that I cannot look at the source code for, period, for startup companies.) This is more of a grumble about people who don't do QUALITY work on their code, and who assume that it's perfect when they should KNOW better, than it's about BASIC, really (Call me finnicky if you want ) Mark, mwillis@nwlink.com Kat Lee wrote: > > Hello everybody, > > About this question of using BASIC in controlling the comm serial port, > I was told that GWBASIC compilers doesn't support the features so > compiling has to be done using TurboBasic or QuickBasic. > > Taken from a program written by a frenchman (He wrote a program using > GWBASIC, compiled it using TurboBasic) to communicate with smartcards, > the command I found in controlling the comm port is something like this: > *STATEMENT NUMBER* OPEN "COM1 :9600,e,8,2" AS #1 > > I don't have a background in BASIC programming so I'd assume that 960 0 > is the baud/bit rate (Smartcards use that speed). And as for e,8 and 2, > maybe you can experiment with them and then tell me what do they do. > > Hope this can help you people like how he enlightened me. > > Have a Happy & Great New Year! > Kat > > ______________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com