Andy,

Your response to Artos had yet to post when i issued my previous post.

The partitioning suggested by Charles and yourself is (in the best sense) obvious, common, and conceptually easy to implement.

I think the required "scale" of the application and it's database is really what drives my previous comment. A low transaction rate query to a high reliability, micro hosted data store is very do-able.

I have seen many post's, on this board, from folks trying to implement a simple serial link to a PC.

I presently deal with mixed micro/PC device complexes and i have found non-SBC PC device hardware reliability to be very poor (Dell/Compaq/HP).

And if you execute under a M$oft OS then, my experience is that, WIN2000 is all you have (if "uptime" is to be maximized).

I am disappointed by how much "power" a simple serial device requires from a WIN/PC
considering what we used to do with embedded devices and our older DOS/CPM/Unix machines.

I believe that if the requirement "scales" to an '51 implementation (using any number of mass storage techniques) this solution, at least, is as appropriate and is probably far more reliable.

Now the ultimate reliability of a fixed disk is another issue (although uptime is good). Also nothing beats a PC for inexpensive presentation, and media exchange.

regards,
p