4800 Baud Rate Omitted from Basic Manuals and Online Help

The baud rates of 4800 and 19200 are accepted in Microsoft QuickBasic versions 3.0, 4.0, 4.0b, and 4.5 for MS-DOS, in Microsoft Basic Compiler versions 6.0 and 6.0b for MS-DOS and MS OS/2, and in Microsoft Basic Professional Development System (PDS) versions 7.0 and 7.1 for MS-DOS and MS OS/2. The 4800 and 19200 baud rates are missing from the documentation and online Help for these products, but they are available and supported.

For the OPEN COM statement on page 239 of the "Microsoft Basic 7.0: Language Reference" for versions 7.0 and 7.1, the valid baud rates are listed as 75, 110, 150, 300, 600, 1200, 1800, 2400, and 9600. The same baud rates are listed in the online Help in QBX.EXE for Basic PDS versions 7.0 and 7.0, and in QB.EXE for QuickBasic version 4.5. Baud rates 4800 and 19200 are omitted, but they are legal values.

For Basic Compiler 6.0 and 6.0b and for QuickBasic 3.0, 4.0, and 4.0b, none of the legal baud rates are mentioned in the online Help or in the manuals, but the manuals do show examples for 1200, 2400, and 9600.

On page 254 of the "QuickBasic 4.5: Language Reference" (which is sold separately from the QuickBasic 4.5 product), baud rate 4800 is listed, but not 19200.

Note that with the 19200 baud rate, a direct wire connection is required. For more information about how to use serial communications in Basic, query on the following words:

Examples

The following OPEN statements are both legal: