Yes that is one of the things i wasnt sure of, in my other forum they sugest sending whatever is in the textbox as a string, see below

Sub SendSerialData(ByVal data As String)
' Send strings to a serial port.
Using com1 As IO.Ports.SerialPort = _
My.Computer.Ports.OpenSerialPort("COM1")
com1.WriteLine(data)
End Using
End Sub

this as far as I know sends it character by character as ascii? am i right in this. if so I could take and convert the number to its ascii character and then send it, but that seems backwards. I would prefer to send it in binary or decimal but I prefer binary. easier to see whats going on. I may have to just send the pic some data and see what it does. but thats one of the reasons I wanted to get some of my questions answered before I get frustrated