This won't work, on the face of it, because an asynchronous serial stream contains 'start' and 'stop' bits, and the port returns to the 'stop bit' level at the completion of sending the current character. When a new character is put into the serial port register, a 'start bit', which is the opposite polarity of the stop bit, is sent, followed by the rest of the data bits, followed again by a stop bit. You'd probably be better served to look at using a parallel port bit for this job, as its output bit state should be latched in whichever state you last write to the port.
Hope that helps! Bob Donnell
