One thought I had was to see if Excel will notice a change  in color
(format change). I have an incoming bit where conditional formating will
change cell  color. Maybe I can grab that change. Also I'm thinking maybe I
can grab a change directly though VB. Which I'll also test  today. A timed
loop may not be the answer because I'm trying to track timer output from 50
machines, each one sending  its own timer seqence, I was counting on Excel to
give me a time  stamp for each one. I've contacted the manufacturer also but
they have not replied yet. I'll post updates