BBS: Inland Empire Archive
Date: 06-29-92 (23:50) Number: 1735
From: DANIEL CORBIER Refer#: NONE
To: BOB GUINDON Recvd: NO
Subj: Re: Few Stupid Questions Conf: (2) Quik_Bas
BG>I couldn't help but notice your reference to communications support with
BG>Power Basic. I have one BIG question, though. Can all four COM ports
BG>be opened simultaneously? Also, are there any other uniques features
BG>related to communications in Power Basic? Thanks in advance for the help.
I'm not much into communications. The documentation says that
COM3: and COM4: are supported only from IRQ3 and IRQ4. I'm not
sure if this implies that the ports cannot be opened together or not.
Here are a few things related to communications in PB:
- $EVENT On/Off. When using ON COM(), the compiler produces some
event checking code in between each statement. For time critical
routines, you can turn $EVENT off. This also makes the EXE smaller.
- If you are not using communications, you can say $LIB COM OFF
(or you can do it from the menu). This makes the EXE smaller.
- LOC returns the number of characters waiting to be read in the
communication buffer.
- LOF returns the amount of space left in a communication buffer.
- Supported baud rates: 75, 110, 150, 300, 600, 1200, 1800, 2400
4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200
- You can keep the DTR high after closing the file with DT option.
- You can set the COM buffer between 0 and 32767 at compile time.
I imagine that COM programs also involve a lot of file handling.
PB has a lot of support for file handling.
There's a file floating around called PBlite which is a fully
working demo version of PowerBASIC. PBlite is to PowerBASIC
what QBasic is to Quick Basic (It doesn't compile to EXE).
... Computer: An office worker that doesn't get fired for making mistakes.
--- Maximus 2.01wb
* Origin: Miami Amateur Computer Club BBS HST/V32b/V42b (1:135/110)
