Run COMR.EXE from the command line, or COMR.BAS from the interprter, and it
will give you a prompt for your serial port's "initialization string."
This string gives the COM port (COM1 or COM2), baud, parity, number of data
bits, and number of stop bits.  The syntax of the input is:

COM2:600,N,8,1

(This is the default you get by just pressing ENTER in response to the
prompt.  If your peripheral device is set to use other parameters or is
attached to COM1, change the appropriate parameter.  "N", above, means
no parity.  If you need even parity, change it to "E".  "O" gives odd
parity.  (There are a few others that QB supports, but those are the
standard ones.  Let me know if you need something else and I'll look it up
or else you might be able to find it in QB's help file--ALT-H from within
QB.))  Timing may be somewhat crucial.  Don't start your peripheral
device sending data until after pressing ENTER upon typing in the above
initialization string.  And then you should start the device sending data
as quickly as possible after inputting the initialization string.  The
screen will display how many bytes have been transferred and a message
indicating that you can press the F1 key to stop the program.  (The program
may take a few seconds to respond to your keystroke.)  If you don't press
the F1 key to stop the program, it will stop after it detects an "end-of-
file" for the 100,000th time (i.e., when it tries to read the COM port and
finds nothing there 100,000 times in a row).  (If you have a really fast
computer, and your data isn't coming very fast, this may not be large
enough.)

COMR outputs any data it receives to the binary file COM.OUT.

If you don't see the line indicating # of bytes transferred, pressing the
F1 key probably won't stop the program.  The most likely cause of this is
that COMR can't find your COM port (or the device attached to isn't turned
on).  The communications should eventually time-out and the program
terminate.
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