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You could use the MSComm control and raise/lower DTR to fire an event. It's just a matter of the button shorting the correct pins on the serial port when the button is pressed. If interested I can give you the pinouts.
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You could use the MSComm control and raise/lower DTR to fire an event. It's just a matter of the button shorting the correct pins on the serial port when the button is pressed. If interested I can give you the pinouts.

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since the distance is long, maybe a direct switching is not recommended, you can use a relay to make switching phisically near to the computer.<br />

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since the distance is long, maybe a direct switching is not recommended, you can use a relay to make switching phisically near to the computer.


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treyH,<br />
i would like the pinouts and any url's that you know that may give me some tips, syntax, code snippets, etc for implementing this solution. &nbsp;THANKS!
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treyH,
i would like the pinouts and any url's that you know that may give me some tips, syntax, code snippets, etc for implementing this solution.  THANKS!

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Superb, Excellent, Above and Beyond! &nbsp; THANK YOU!
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Superb, Excellent, Above and Beyond!   THANK YOU!

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i have a physical, hardware button mounted on the outside of our business, next to our front door. &nbsp;is there any way i can connect it to a windows computer so that every time it is pressed it appends the date and time to a text file? &nbsp;i can do all the programming either via batch file or visual basic but i do not know where to start interfacing a physical switch to a windows computer. &nbsp;is there some way to do it via serial, usb, parallel? &nbsp;any help would be great. &nbsp;thanks!
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i have a physical, hardware button mounted on the outside of our business, next to our front door.  is there any way i can connect it to a windows computer so that every time it is pressed it appends the date and time to a text file?  i can do all the programming either via batch file or visual basic but i do not know where to start interfacing a physical switch to a windows computer.  is there some way to do it via serial, usb, parallel?  any help would be great.  thanks!

How to use an external hardware button trigger an event in windows

Visual Basic is Microsoft’s event-driven programming language and integrated development environment (IDE) for its Component Object Model (COM) programming model. It is relatively easy to learn and use because of its graphical development features and BASIC heritage. It has been replaced with VB.NET, and is very similar to VBA (Visual Basic for Applications), the programming language for the Microsoft Office product line.

Visual Basic Classic

Microsoft Windows XP is the sixth release of the NT series of operating systems, and was the first to be marketed in a variety of editions: XP Home and XP Professional, designed for business and power users. The advanced features in XP Professional are generally disabled in Home Edition, but are there and can be activated. There were two 64-bit editions, an embedded edition and a tablet edition.