Abstract: A system and method for displaying information from a device on a display screen using application screens generated by a graphical user interface. Device commands that request information about the device are received by the device driver that provides an interface to the device. The device driver interprets the device command using a device command task and calls an application caller to start an application that displays an application screen containing the information requested by the device command. In one embodiment, a modem help command is entered by the user at a command line of a terminal application. The device command task calls the application caller to start the help system application to display the modem help information on an application screen generated from the graphical user interface.

Abstract: A system and method for communicating with a serial communications device using multiple virtual ports. The multiple virtual ports are mapped to device names using a port router. The virtual ports are accessed to provide a communications port, or to provide a command/status port for accessing status and performance information about the communications device. The virtual ports may be used to establish a communications connection and, concurrently, to run a second application that monitors the communications speed. The communications speed may be displayed to the user in real-time.