Software developers can access various devices by utilizing the Windows API. When using an API, you gain access to a full spectrum of available features, but API programming is a very tough and time-consuming task. You have to study the documentation and you have to create all the high-level functionality based on the low-level API functions from scratch. This is OK if you develop a specialized application. However, in most cases, you just want to get a certain device working in your program with the least effort possible. One of the system devices that you often need to support is a Serial Port. There are numerous lab instruments, protection gadgets and other inventory that can be connected via a COM port. Instead of spending weeks or even months for API coding, you could use a ready-made ActiveX component in your program. We recommend you give Serial Port Control from FabulaTech a try. Serial Port Control is an inexpensive, royalty-free, component. You can use it with any development environment, such as Visual Basic, Visual Basic .Net, Visual C++, Visual C#, Borland Delphi, Borland Builder, etc. Just put it on a form and you have all the functionality you need to access a serial port, either physical or virtual. Serial Port Control automatically enumerates all the ports available in the system. You just need to select the port name you wish to work with. The event driven architecture of this component is a snap to use. You don't have to check ports periodically in order to find if there is new data available for reading from a port. Simply define a function in your program that will be triggered automatically by the appropriate event and process the data. Despite its low cost, the component is royalty-free. There are no hidden fees and you are free to distribute it together with your own software.