Sending commands from Excel to a device

 Sub SendEscapeP()
   Dim Chan As Long
   Chan = DDEInitiate("WinWedge", "COM1")
   DDEExecute Chan, "[SENDOUT(27,'P',13,10)]"
   DDETerminate Chan
End Sub

 Sub SendText(StringToSend$)
   Dim Chan As Long
   Chan = DDEInitiate("WinWedge", "COM2")
   ' The following line concatenates the SEND command with the data
   ' to be sent
   DDEExecute Chan, "[SEND(" & StringToSend$ &")]"
   ' The & operator is the Excel string concatenation operator thus we
   ' are concatenating the three strings "[SEND(" , the data in the\
   ' string variable StringToSend$ and ")]". Thus if StringToSend$
   ' ="ABC" then the command that is sent to WinWedge would
   ' be: [SEND(ABC)]"
   DDETerminate Chan
End Sub

 Sub SendCells()
   ' open a link to winwedge on com1
   chan = DDEInitiate("WinWedge", "COM1")
   ' starting offset from current cell is 0:
   MyPointer = 0
   ' put string from current cell in variable x$
   x$ = ActiveCell.Offset(rowOffset:=MyPointer, columnOffset:=0).Value

   ' while the length of the string is not 0
   While Len(x$)
      ' send the string out the port followed by a carriage return
      ' DDEExecute chan, "[SENDOUT(' " & x$ & " ',13)]"
      ' point to the next cell down
      MyPointer = MyPointer + 1
      ' get next cell
      x$ = ActiveCell.Offset(rowOffset:=MyPointer, _
      columnOffset:=0).Value
      ' loop until we reach an empty cell
   Wend

   'Close DDE Channel
   DDETerminate chan
End Sub

 Sub SendString(StringToSend$)
   ' The following loop reads the StringToSend$ variable and generates
   ' a string containing the ASCII values for each character in the
   ' string separated by commas. This resulting string is then used as
   ' the argument to the SENDOUT command below. Ex: if the variable
   ' StringToSend$ = "ABC" then the variable Arg$ will be "65,66,67"
   ' See the syntax of the SENDOUT command in the Wedge users manual
   ' for details.

   For x = 1 To Len(StringToSend$)
      Arg$ = Arg$ + LTrim$(Str$(Asc(Mid$(StringToSend$, x, 1))))
      If x <> Len(StringToSend$) Then Arg$ = Arg$ + ","
   Next

   channelNumber = Application.DDEInitiate("WinWedge", "COM2")
   ' The following line concatenates the SENDOUT command with the data
   ' to be sent
   Application.DDEExecute channelNumber, "[SENDOUT(" & Arg$ &")]"
   ' The & operator is the Excel string concatenation operator thus we
   ' are concatenating the three strings "[SENDOUT(" , the data in the\
   ' string variable Arg$ and ")]". Thus if StringToSend$="ABC" then
   ' the command that is sent to WinWedge would be:[SENDOUT(65,66,67)]"
   ' - (the ASCII values for chars A, B and C are 65, 66 and 67)
   Application.DDETerminate channelNumber
End Sub

 Sub TestSendString()
   X$ = Sheets("Sheet1").Cells(1, 1).Value
   SendString(X$)
End Sub

 Sub PokeData()
   ' open a DDE channel
   chan = DDEInitiate("WinWedge", "COM2")
   ' poke the word "Hello" followed by a carriage return
   '(ASCII 13) to the outputbuffer
   DDEPoke chan, "OutputBuffer", "Hello" + Chr$(13)
   ' close the channel
   DDETerminate chan
End Sub