How to control an Arduino from a PC

Using Arduino Interfacing w/ Software on the Computer
14

I've used VB.net for this in the past and that's fairly easy. The best example I have is

Public Class Form1

    Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
        Dim i As Long
        Dim s As String

        If Not SerialPort1.IsOpen() Then
            SerialPort1.Open()
        End If

        TextBox1.Text = ""
        TextBox1.Refresh()
        Do While i < 50
            SerialPort1.Write("<hello>")
            s = SerialPort1.ReadLine()
            TextBox1.Text = TextBox1.Text + s + vbCrLf
            TextBox1.Refresh()
            i = i + 1
        Loop

    End Sub

    Private Sub Form1_Disposed(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Disposed
        If SerialPort1.IsOpen() Then
            SerialPort1.Close()
        End If

    End Sub

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        SerialPort1.PortName = "Com33"
        SerialPort1.Open()
    End Sub
End Class

(I must clean this up one day to just echo characters).

However the simplest thing to do is just use one of the terminal progs mentioned above, or even the IDE serial monitor. That way there's no PC programming to do at all.

Rob