[LCP]Network programming.

[Larry Griffin]

Kent
I usually do this with sockets.  If your are going to have a lot of
clients then you may need to read up on threads.  There is a ton of free
education on the net as well as some very fine books on the subject. 
You could go X.25 but that could lead you into some expensive hardware.

If you go sockets you need to get the basics out of the way first. 
First to create client and server then to know from both ends if the
socket is still up.  Finally (as far as the basics go) you need to learn
how to check if your pipe is full before you write to it.  I wrote a
program once that needed to interface with another vendor.  In real life
the pipe may get 15 messages a minute.  When the other vendor tested the
interface they had written a test program to pump 10,000 messages all
aat once.  It hung my system.  The most time consuming and boring aspect
of programming is the checking that needs to be done everywhere.

Once you feel you have the socket basics down you can begin with your
application.  You'll need to create your own message structure with
field structures, records types, etc. so the client and server can
communicate.
Larry G.