Thanks guys for the help. I think for now I'm going to start with Processing. It seems to be a lot easier to work with. I would like to play around with some VB & C++ , but I don't think I'm ready for it at the moment.
Thanks for the code Plastbox. That was very helpful. The only thing is ... I don't have VB 6.0 .. I have the free VB 2008 Express. I don't think it has MS Comm. It does have SerialPort.
thanks,
Phil