I missed bikeNomad's post when I searched. Thank you for turning it up, it looks interesting. Perhaps I need to write better queries.

jcwren's post is only one person's reaction. Maybe some other monks have some thoughts on the subject that they'd be willing to share.

Have you used Device::SerialPort or Win32::SerialPort? Have you used filehandles and friends? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, please let me know what you thought of your experience.