years ago I wrote a basic application for communications to an RS 232 (Maxim 232CPL) chip for some test equipment I work on. Now, I no longer have the DOS 6.0 computer and I now have a 64 bit Windows 7 computer with no serial port. I recently purchased a USB to Serial cable with the FTDI drivers and it is working fine so my question is, any advice to get my basic program working with this computer.
I have an old version of Visual Basic Professional 6.0 32 bit edition from college that I used, is this something that I can use or am I going to have to invest in a more modern Visual Basic version? I have Jan's book "Serial Port Complete" but I noticed her new addition online has the USB chapters. I should probably invest in the new book as I have no 3.5" drive to run the examples.
I've known this day was coming that my old computer was going to die and I was going to be in big trouble not being able to control my test equipment through the serial port.
Any ideas? Pardon my ignorance on this subject, its just been a long time since I've coded (over 15 years ) so I'm pretty rusty on my programming.
FYI- my first couple of lines in the Basic program were:
Also, I'm not asking for help to code but just good advice on what to buy and how to accomplish it and nor overkill the budget as I need the simplest programming package (economically) as I probably wont use it but for just this simple program. I would rather not spend $1000 for the latest visual basic package. Programming in C would also be an option as I'm about the same speed or a little better in C.
10: OPEN "COM1 : 4800 ,N,8,CS,DS,LF" FOR RANDOM AS #1
20: PRINT #1, "2" + CHR$(13)
30: INPUT "command: "; cmd$
40: IF cmd$ = "quit" THEN 160
50: PRINT #1, cmd$
