Hi,

I want to acquire data into dbf from an electronic weighing machine through RS232 serial interface.

I want to acquire data and store it in dbf and then use in foxpro (DOS) software.

Kindly help me in acquiring data in DOS.

It is a long time since I have had to do this 10 years or so but we managed it with SLIP - Serial Line Interface Protocol. But someone my have a better idea.

Simon

Are you looking for a package which will do this for you, or for help with programming a solution yourself?

If the former, I would suggest Google, using search parameters of +DOS +"Serial Data Acquisition" or, contact the weigh scale manufacturer. One package which might work for you is TALtech's File-Wedge.

In either case, if there's ANY possibility of getting a Windows machine into the picture, it would be very beneficial, as there are a LOT of products available for windows programming, and data collection. If nothing else, you could add a windows computer with 2 serial ports to read the serial comm from the weigh scale and echo it to the existing computer. That way, you could sample it and store it in the data file. (assuming that you have networking enabled on the DOS machine)

If you cannot get the DOS computer changed over to windows, or adding a monitor per above, I would suggest taking a look at some of the programming archives - Turbo Pascal, for instance, had a lot of support in the 80's/early 90's, and I remember quite a few programming examples dealing with serial I/O. You'll be on your own as far as the dbf file and index updates, though.

Thanx Loquin,

I am running DOS Software on a Win.98 machine. I has the serial port which can be connected to the electronic weigh scale. I want to program myself to acquire data from weigh scale into my software.

So, TALtech's File-Wedge may work for you. It could potentially capture the serial input, filter it, and write the appropriate fields into the database file.

(it does have some fairly advanced filtering)

Or, write a VB program to capture the serial input, parse it, and write to the DB file yourself.

What does the current software do? Does it currently read the serial input?

Would the data capture program be required to interface to the existing software? (I'm not sure that a windows program can easily (if at all) automate a DOS based app...)

Another good solution to solve your problem !

Bill Redirect software from Bill Production Softwares can redirect the serial data directly to a file !

Support all scales model and protocol

Price 35$ USD

Regards,

Peter

Foxpro 2.6 "help fopen".

It says that in DOS mode, you can open COMn ports also if they are preceded by the appropriate MODE setting. But be careful, you have to boot in DOS mode.

A idea would be to use a package (free and simple) that writes data to a file on the host.

Noe use Foxpro to read it in.

End