[racket] accessing serial communications on Racket/Windows?...

At Tue, 13 Mar 2012 17:00:12 +0100, Rüdiger Asche wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Section 12.1.5 of the docs suggests that it should be possible to use  
> file ports for accessing serial communications, such as
> 
> (define-values (inport outport) (open-input-output-file "com1"))
> 
> That works, but
> 
> > inport
> 
> #<input-port:c:\personal\racket\v1.1\com1>
> 
> and likewise
> 
> > outport
> 
> #<output-port:c:\personal\racket\v1.1\com1>
> 
> which means in theory and practice that Racket creates a file called  
> com1 in that directory 

Can you tell me more about your OS configuration, including the
filesystem?

I have never been able to create a file named "com1" without using
`\\?\' paths (i.e., "\\\\?\\" as a Racket string). Without using
`\\?\', my understanding was that "com1" means the COM1 port, no matter
what directory or extension you use for the path, and that this
treatment of "com1" is wired into the Windows API (as opposed to being
a property of the filesystem). But it sounds like I'm missing a piece
of the story.

Thanks!
Matthew