I refer to the first of the two responses posted above by DILLETANTE.

Leaving aside the somewhat derogatory tone of Dillatante's post, these further thoughts are submitted for constructive comment.

USB is indeed a data bus as opposed to a 1 to 1 serial link such as RS-232. However it has a lot in common with RS-232. If you consider the USB connection to a single external device - whatever it may be - there is a serial data stream to the device and a serial data stream from the device. The fourth wire is just the +5v power.

If it is indeed possible to obtain adaptor units which plug into a RS-232 port and which provide a USB type external connection, then in principle it might be possible for a RS-232 serial data string sent to that port to be onward routed by the adaptor to the RS-232 device and vice-versa. If that were possible, perhaps a single USB device could appear to the PC as if it were a RS-232 device, and hence MSCOMM could talk to it via that RS-232 numbered COM port.

Of course such a system could not take advantage of the very high speed available with the USB, but potentially it might work to the limits of 232 which are sufficient for a large number of purposes. I have not read of a minimum serial data speed limit for USB operation (only of maxima depending whether 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0).

It would, as stated above in this thread, be necessary to learn from the USB device manufacturer just what serial codes must be sent to their device and how to interpret what comes back. Therefore one would effectively have to write what amounts to a device driver - but that is not beyond the bounds of possibility given a co-operative supplier.

If this could be achieved, then the interfacing of VB6 etc. with single USB devices might be possible, and surely that would be a very useful thing?

camoore