Depending on your application, there are a number of ways by which Perl can be used. For example, to speak serially with a device through Perl on the Windows platform, you could use Win32::SerialPort (on *NIX, the equivalent of this module is Device::SerialPort) - And from memory, the Commodore 64 disk drive and external devices all ran daisy-bussed on the serial port, so this may be a better direction for development.

The biggest hurdle I would see would be determining the specifications of how your target device talks - That exactly how it receives its command set and its sample responses, not only logically, but also electrically. This in itself may be quite a hurdle to your development.

 

perl -e 's&&rob@cowsnet.com.au&&&split/[@.]/&&s&.com.&_&&&print'