Hi John,

I see this request often enough that I feel like I should write a little set
of directions for doing this.  In terms of a "quick" version of doing this
in VB 6.0, you should follow the steps:

1.  To add the "MSComm" to the Form Toolbar, Click on "Projects" and then
"Components".  Click on the square box to "Microsoft Comm Control 6.0"
followed by "Apply" and then "Close".  This will put the (invisible) Comm
Control (a "telephone") on the toolbar.

2.  Click on and place the telephone control onto your Form.  This control
is invisible, so you can put it anywhere.  The control will come up as
"MSComm1".

3.  Set your initial operating parameters.  For working with most
applications, I set the following properties for the MSComm control:
CommPort - "COM#" Serial Port Number to be used
InputLen = 0 - This means that if you use the "OnComm" event, you will be
flagged after each character input
InputMode = 1 - "comInputModeBinary" to read in full binary data.
Settings = "((#)#)###,n,8,1" where "((#)#)###" is the data speed you are
communicating with the PICmicro

4.  Add the following subroutines to your application:

Private Sub SerPortOpen(OnOff As Integer)
'  Open the Serial Port if "OnOff" is <> 0
'  Else, Close the Serial Port

    If (OnOff = 0) Then
        MSComm1.PortOpen = False
    Else
        MSComm1.PortOpen = True
    End If

End Sub

Private Sub SerPortSend(Data As String)
'  Send the "Data" string out of the Serial Port

    MSComm1.Output = Data

End Sub

Private Function SerPortRead() As String
'  Poll the Serial Port and if something is available return it,
'  Else, return a Null String

    SerPortRead = ""

    If (MSComm1.InBufferCount <> 0) Then
        SerPortRead = MSComm1.Input
    End If

End Function

These are about the most basic subroutines you can have for serial
interfacing in VB.  I recommend that in your "Form_Load" subroutine, put in
the line:

    call SerPortOpen(1)            '  Open the Serial Port

and, at the end of the application, always put in:

    call SerPortOpen(0)            '  Close the Serial Port

5.  You can use SerPortRead and SerPortSend in your application to send and
receive data to the PICmicro one byte at a time.

6.  The other MSComm properties (namely "DTREnable", "Handshaking",
"InBufferSize", "NullDiscard", "OutBufferSize", "RThreshold", "RTSEnable"
and "SThreshold") can be changed as required.


Comments?

myke
----- Original Message -----
From: "john" <rempetis@SYMPATICO.CA>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2001 7:25 PM
Subject: [EE]:Visual Basic serial interface


> Hi,
> Im using a 16C71 to send data through a serial port to my PC (analog
> readings) and I want to use VB 6.0 to graphically represent the data.
> Any help would be appreciated.  Thank you.
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
> mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu
>
>
>

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