o.k.
I have had such bad luck with VB that I actually went back to QBASIC.
here is the code I an using.
10 OPEN "COM1:9600,N,8,1,CS,DS,RS" FOR RANDOM AS #1
20 PRINT #1, CHR$(176) + CHR$(176) + CHR$(214) + CHR$(27)
30 END
chr$(176) is num lock ( using this instead of scroll lock)
chr$(214) is...