Jim -
i'm not sure, but i think we are agreeing here :)
it sounded like he _would_ have a form, since he mentioned a
textbox. on each received character, i'd append the just-
received character to a form-level buffer. when the received
character is the delimiter, assign

THISFORM.txt_My_Text_Box.VALUE = ALLTRIM(THISFORM.str_My_Buffer)

in the txt_My_Text_Box.ProgrammaticChange event deal with
the data as necessary (which is likely to be the bulk of code).
that's about as minimal as you can get in the OnComm event.

i didn't realize the events fired differently whether or not
it was on a form. does that mean the DLL and the OCX are
implemented slightly differently ?