Hi Randy I agree I use VB5 and the MSCOMMCONTROL sending and rx'ing 232 culdn't be simpler. But what I'm actually loking for is a way to download a HEX file from my emulator and to burn a PIC16c7x. It can be done quite simply with the 84 range of controllers but I just cant get the 74 to work. Anyway I'll try out your links, thanks Phil Cork Ireland ----- Original Message ----- From: Randy A. To: Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 4:49 PM Subject: Re: Connecting a PIC to a PC > Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to just get VB Pro and write a simple comms > program using the existing hardware in the PC or at the most a $50 or $60 > expansion card. It seems to me that this ReatTime is a bit pricey for simple > serial communications. But, maybe I am missing something in the application. > I use VB 6.0 Pro with the Mscomm control and have never had any problem > communicating via serial with anything, using the existing serial ports on > the PC as well as a few applications which required more than 2 ports and I > installed an expansion card and ran 4 different devices including a Basic > Stamp 2 and an 8052 MCU. Hope maybe this will help. > > Randy A. >