I press  a start button  to run the program  (a macro). Then it runs
fine. After 5 minutes, I might decide to stop  this 'display data
program'. I cannot click  on anything since my mouse  pointer appears
busy. The only way out is escape and wait or ctrl-alt-del and wait.
The program is able to listen to COM1. When I send a shut-down command
through the RS-232 port, I can shut the program down, and work with
this Excel sheet like normal, perfect. But I want to be able to shut
it down without something plugged into COM1.