Ha indeed - looks like it would be a fun car to have - looking at it, I get the song lyrics! (Speaking of riding a bike, I wan in a band that played that song when it was NEW. Let's say that I was very young at that time, and we'll leave it at that...)
 
Sounds like a challenging project. BTW, I was told by a Baker (i.e. a Cake Developer) that the ACT API allows for Bi-Directional communication. If your 3rd-party app supports that, then it will be a real first (and very cool to boot).

From what I read, it does support bi directional. Would be very cool.  I'm currently trying to get Visual C++ loaded back up on my computer.

Sounds cool. If your VC++ is too old, rather than buy a new one, you can try using the (free) Win7 SDK here:
 
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8279
 

There seem to be a few free C++ compilers out there.  Lucky for me though work I have a MSDN subscription. Lots of C and C++ cobwebs to dust off. 

Nice. Dust away. You've probably forgotten more than I ever picked up in that area (not too versant in Win32/COM etc. here).

redbarchetta
HA, I've always wondered what a barchetta looked like. Oddly enough, even though it's one of my favorite RUSH songs, I've never gone out and tried to do an image search to find out what one looks like. 

That's not a "Red Barchetta" btw.  It's a red Dino (Ferrari) 246 GT, entirely different car.


Some images of what a red Ferrari "Barchetta" actually looks like:

http://www.google.com/img...DQQ9QEwAQ&dur=8940


Iirc, "barchetta" means "little boat" in Italian...

It's cuter, but I bet just as fun to drive! I am now better educated in the old world of red Ferraris!

bitman


The actual coding interface is good old COM.

COM interfaces are like pigeons.  They look ugly, seem to serve no purpose other than to create a mess everywhere, and are due to go the way of the dodo bird.  And yet, they there are, fluttering around Trafalgar Square in large numbers where you just resign yourself to feeding them.