Input from Serial Port (Any version)

Topic

New Reply

Has anyone had any experience in Access getting input from a serial port device? I am specifically investigating the use of a serial barcode reader (not the wedge type that inserts between keyboard and PC).

Reply | Quote

Replies

I’ve worked with getting data from a digitizing table connected through a COM port. You may want to look for an ActiveX control you can license to handle the necessary API calls for you.

Reply | Quote

Good idea. I’ll check out the ActiveX market to see what’s out there. Thanks.

Reply | Quote

We’ve used a wedgie barcode scanner on several databases, and had good results, but have no experience with serial port devices. Do you know if it emulates keystrokes like the wedgie types?

Reply | Quote

I don’t think it works the same way. I think some years ago (in another programming language) I did some work with getting info from a comm port, and it seems like we treated it almost like reading a record from a file.

Reply | Quote

Is some sort of driver associated with the scanner? A serial port simply presents one bit at a time in some sort of encoded scheme so you know where the characters start and stop. So it seems like a manufacturer would need to provide some sort of driver at the OS level to give you a callable interface.

I’m sure there is an obvious answer for this, but why not use the wedge type of interface? We had good luck with it, and development is a trivial affair compared to most other forms of getting info from non-standard devices. Just curious.

Reply | Quote

I don’t know anything about the scanners. Don’t even have one to play with. I was hoping for some general information, or maybe a hint to point me in the right direction!

Reply | Quote

Mark,
Here is an application from VBCode.com for scanners.
Maybe you can adapt it in access
Scott

Reply | Quote

Thanks, I’ll give it a look-see.

Reply | Quote