"P.V." <ano@nymo.us> wrote:

>"AJL" <5@fakeaddress.com> kirjoitti viestissä

>> Years ago I wrote a Quickbasic program for Keyboarding Morse code. I
>> wrote one for receiving as well... For some reason
>> Windows wouldn't allow my program access to the hardware through the
>> serial port.

>Have you tried to run DOS in an emulator window under Windows?

No. I haven't used the program in over 17 years. That was back when
everyone was into Basic. It was fun project to write and use, but
after I got it working the challenge was over. (I usually work CW the
old fashioned way...by ear and bug).

> Perhaps Windows would allow accessing serial port from an emulator...

And I haven't owned a computer that has a serial port in years
either... ;)

>If you want to try that, DOSBox comes with its own version of DOS...

I thank you for your suggestion though.

>But on second thought, you said you're sending and receiving Morse code;
>that sounds pretty time critical...

Yes it was time critical. I was using a 386 at 40 MHz and it worked
quite well for as primitive as my Basic program was. For those of you
who dabbled in Basic, I used Pokes and Peeks. I poked one line on the
serial port that was attached to a relay for keying the transmitter,
and I and sampled another line for the levels from the receiver. The
simple homebrew interface took care of the levels. The timing was done
in loops with lookup tables. The top speed under good conditions was
around 35 WPM which wasn't great considering that commercial programs
of that era could do well over 100 WPM. They didn't do me much good
though cause I can't type over 20 WPM... ;)