OMG! Try to understand a bit more about computers before you start to point the finger and say "I found another bug in Windows 98!" Do you know how ignorant you sound?

First: using a 232 to 485 converter is YOUR OWN @#%^$ warped decision. Period. What you should have done is buy a 485 PCI card. No buts, and any problems you encounter because of your half assed approach can hardly be blamed on "bugs in Windows". You are asking for problems, then you get them, and then it suddenly isn't funny anymore and it's time to find something else to blame than yourself. That's childish.

And then the delay. This is not the first time this has come up. This is not a bug, it's YOU not understanding that Windows was never designed to do that. It isn't a realtime operating system, it was meant to run applications like Word, Excel, Internet Explorer not on an exact 50ms basis. If you want exact 50ms slices, use a micro controller. I could point at you and say: "I found a bad property in you: you can't sing opera very well". Well, so what? Did you ever want to?

On both accounts: you expect Windows to do somthing it is not capable of. Is that a bug? My car doesn't go 400 km/h. I think it is broken.

I say: the grass is always greener on the other side of the mountain. Especially if you don't understand a hoot about gardening.