Go to the Downloads section, search on "MSCOMM32", and download "Basic Serial Communication with MSCOMM". I found it a good starting point in using MSCOMM32 for accessing the serial ports. Additional searches will yield several other FAQs that help accessing the ports, determining status, ect... I have found MSCOMM32 to work very well, once you get accustomed to the "quirks". I really appreciated the Events it can generate, but with one "gotcha". After a "got data" event, if you "get" the data you may find that your computer is too fast and has not allowed all data to arrive at the buffer. This problem haunted me for days.

Good Luck!

>I require to send a record of data to a Hotel Front Desk billing system thru COM1 using an RS232 cable connection. The data is a single ascii data record that must be sent to COM1 & similar data read back from the same port. The way it works is this. If a bill is required to be sent to the main computer to bill an existing resident, a request is sent from my computer via COM1. My system must then await a response from COM1 before proceeding. How can i write code that will achieve this. Iam using VFP6.0 and WIN98. I hope someone can help becasue it all rests on this for THE BIG ONE!!!.
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>Yours
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>Des.