Spreadsheet as realtime viewer?

Hello Folks,

We want to create charts from data that comes streaming in in batches over USB. My old DOS version of MS-Works could do that. I could pipe data in via RS232 and its built-in terminal function and set it up so it displays it as a graph. Worked very nicely with logic analyzer data and stuff like that.

In newer MS-Works and Excel versions I could not find that feature. Did it vanish?

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg
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MS_Works, no. Excel, maybe. Try to Open the port/device you want to use from within VBA.

Reply to
Homer J Simpson

In case this doesn't work, maybe these do (no own experience):

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Gerhard

Reply to
Gerhard Fiedler

Sigh. I was afraid that they had dumped it. Maybe I was the only guy who used it back then?

A bit pricey for RS232-only but heck, if it works why not? I am surprised that they charge so much for DOS importers because many SW packages in the DOS days were smarter and could already do that import. Such as the old MS-Works.

That one looks really good, thanks.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

As in this link:

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Or many others when you google "Excel VBA RS232"

Here's a Code sample doing just that using the built-in VBA:

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Robert

Reply to
Robert

It is still there and is called VBA (Visual Basic for Applications or something) Essentially the same as regular Visual Basic, but it has lots of nice tie-in's with the spreadsheet, so it's easy to read data from an RS232 port and dump it into whatever cells you want etc.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

Thanks, I'll have to talk to the SW guy about it. I am not a programmer and the old Works didn't require a programming language. It just worked ;-)

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Is there a VBA tutorial on-line anywhere? I bought a copy of VB4 back in

1995 or so, so I'm passing familiar with it, and at my new client's I get to use Office 2000, which includes VBA.

It actually sounds rather powerful[1], but where's the instruction manual?

Thanks, Rich [1] given the caveat that it was written (or purloined) by MICRO$~1.

Reply to
Rich Grise

"VBA tutorial" in google gets some pages, and there are almost certainly books on the subject. There is also online help somewhere in the Microsoft package but it's not easy to find and extract IIRC.

Dave.

Reply to
David L. Jones

Robert@ yahoo.com wrote:

Joerg, If you ever do get this working, it would be interesting to know if it works under the VBA-compliant fork of OpenOffice.org:

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Reply to
JeffM

I believe you need the MSCOMM control. Then add a 'magic' registry key to turn it on. Cause its not part of office but part of visual studio. Murkey license thing, even MS doesnt know what to do.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

Thanks! Looks good! :-)

Thanks, Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Thanks. Man, this gets complicated. It was so easy back in the DOS days. All I had to do was open the terminal program in MS-Works and that was it.

Maybe we'll finally do it with the DAQFactory software from Azeotech. It's expensive but that has all the stuff in there.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

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Especially since Noel said in there that not everything is supported yet. I'll talk to the SW guy about it but that will probably be some time next week.

OpenOffice has kind of turned me off a bit because it behaves so extremely bloated on the PC. Even on one that has 1GB of RAM.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

MS Works never had it and still doesn't. In Excel, just hit Alt-F11 or go Tools:Macros:Edit

Reply to
Homer J Simpson

O'Reilly has two books on VB6 / VBA.

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Reply to
Homer J Simpson

This page offers compiled Help files on VBA for different MS Applications including Excel.

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Robert

Reply to
Robert

The DOS version sure did, via it's built-in terminal module. I have used that a lot to display logic analyzer data. Remember the old Dolch LAM3250? It was about the only tool in my lab that had a RS232 instead of those dreaded GPIB ports. Very practical.

But that was obviously taken out of Windows releases. And even if we could make it work again via some fancy USB-RS232 detour I doubt my client would be able to buy DOS-Works licenses.

I'll have to talk to the SW guy about the macro edit method. I am not familiar with that macro stuff. Just tried and my Excel does have it, so maybe there is hope.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Maybe this might help

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Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

David L. J>>>>>It is still there and is called VBA (Visual Basic for Applications

Mart>Maybe this might help

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Aaaaaaaaa! ActiveX on top of Visual Basic. 8-( Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

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Reply to
JeffM

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