Regarding my question "how do you define
"wait-for-something" mode". 
Forget I asked. (Please ). Knowing I'm a novice is one thing, showing the 
whole world is another.
    I'll letcha know how it turns out.

    Okay.. I took your advice. Moved my reads to a thread to check it out. 
Your suggestion to use a "wait-for-something" approach showed no noticable 
improvement, however it did also "not" exhibit the
"delay" which I had 
previously mentioned.
    Notably, I no longer have to check for "waiting" characters. While it 
doesn't work "as I want" that is more due to the
"oddity" I mentioned in my 
earlier message which I will look after later.

    Also as you suggest, the dossleep appears to be a waste inside the thread, 
although I still use it in the main program to lower the system demand (one 
dosleep through the loop, which I "suppose" I could probably alleviate by 
moving my loop into a thread as well).

    Thanks for your advice in this manner. And where the heck were you when I 
first started trying to figure out my communications routines?  It's nice 
to know I got the basics right, even if my implementation was less than 
perfect.

Dave...
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