Re: 9 bit communication on RS 232

"Syd Rumpo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 14:46:49 +0100, Michael Hofmann
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >suchitra wrote:
> >> Hello All
> >> I wanted to know how can we configure com port for 9 bit
> >> communication.
> >> I intend to use the 9th bit as Address/data bit..since i want to
> >> communicate with more than one devices.
> >
> >though not proficient with the protocol, I could imagine you might be
> >able to abuse a second stop bit for your purpose.
>
> The so-called 'stop bit' is really just a gap between characters whose
> minimum length can usually be set, so you couldn't really use that.
> Be careful of using parity - it's quite possible, but remember that
> the PC UART has FIFO buffers for data, in other words data may be
> queued but changes in parity will happen 'immediately'.

I've done this on Windows98 using VB4. No problem,
other than it takes a very long time for VB to toggle the parity bit.
Hopefully that is fixed in newer versions of VB.