>>>Well, I haven't seen any murders yet, just a problem to solve. If you wish, let's just go to email with the rest of this. I doubt that anything we are doing here is very useful to the general VFP public. However, we could go on to create the longest thread ever?
>>
>>There's at least one of the general VFP public very interested in this thread still ! I am in the process of looking at transferring an application that uses a lot of serial comms to VFP- so problems of this type are of direct relevance.
>>
>>If you do take it off-line, I would still be intersted in hearing the solution.
>
>My above comment was made as I saw the problem becoming very specific to John's host hardware and software. Just trying to reduce the "noise level" a bit. I have no problem with finishing our troubleshooting right here for your benefit, Len.

Thanks - I can understand why you made the comment, the problem may be specific, but some of you're suggestions are generic to comms problems (I was going to ask if the DEC end was configured for XON/XOFF handshaking - if not any XON/XOFF may be causing the problem, but I got sidetracked before I added it to my post).

I've had many problems in the past with 3rd party comms routines, one caused by buffer overflow in a Unix system, where the condition wasn't flagged, the buffer was simply emptied & refilled. Since then I've always preferred to be in total control of comms routines, writing my own in asembler. Now I'm in a position where I must consider using ActiveX controls, I want to know all the pitfalls I might run into, as some of the comms. is in safety critical areas.