Bill,

>>This client had a label printer running off a serial port on machine A and wanted to print labels on that printer from machine B.
>>At that time there was no way to share a serial port, so I wrote a DCOM app running on Machine A that was accessed by machine B.

Those were the days. I just deployed a throw-away $50 printer that comes with ethernet and wireless for seamless sharing. Amazon offered related items as usual, one of which was a tiny "print server" device that can share a handful of usb/serial-only printers online.

Your post reminds me how FP2.0 needed a connectivity kit to share data. FP2.5 could share data without any extra pieces; MS released Windows for Workgroups that they assured hospital clients would allow sharing of my local tables without a server. After some fun with that, a Netware server was resuscitated. Computerworld published specs showing FP2.5 with performance orders of magnitude better than prevailing options. Then MS began to damn Fox with faint praise even after the splendid VFP beta that kept me in the fold despite exhortations/every reason to adopt Delphi. And now the cycle is almost complete with the concept of a 4GL largely obsolete, replaced by excitement at the modern-day versions of your efforts to share a serial printer!