The device is functional and barring a few software bugs quite functional.
wonder why that rings familiar

Are there any ideas to enhance the reliablity of this vis-a-vis power supply et al ... I am using a 7805 which is powered up by a standard 230VAC ~ 9 VDC adaptor or 9VDC battery. This is targeted for field usage .I ask this query because the 89c512 I was using suddenly passed away ......
Millios or maybe billions of units out there work satisfatory in that configuration. The thing that will kill you there is a ground loop (power "ground" at one potential and input device "ground" at another) We all have learned that "ground" is NOT ground.

Anyone can give some info , why the ground ring is required for the RTC around its crystal pins ?
EMI coming in and EMI going out, I have, on occasion, had to remedy problems by making all on a board run on the same clock because the 2 clocks were 'biting' each other.

May not be strictly for this forum , but still ...
I have written a C file to receive the data which works just fine if i boot up windows 98 in dos prompt mode , but is glitchy if i boot up in gui and then create a dos session ? Any ideas gentlemen ??? Code will be posted if someone asks for it ...
I am a member of the cleaning ladies trade union (I do not do Windows)

Erik