Thanks Bryan.

You are right to suspect what I'm trying to control. We think alike, that's why I took that out of the equation and started troubleshooting with Hyperterminal.

Hyperterminal is a windows program that allows you to examine RS232 output from the MSC-400 (or any socket connection for that matter). There is no way that Hyperterminal could be too slow to react (and I've checked the port settings). With Hyperterminal, I know for sure what is being sent out by the MSC-400. I know for sure the work around from the original post works (but only for variable macros), but sending the same trigger on each button press doesn't.

I'm really hoping someone can verify the screwy results I'm having. It could be there is some setting I have wrong in the software. It may make more sense for me to post a test file, but I think there's enough info for someone with similar equipment to reproduce the issue. If you were to post a file that offers reliable custom rs232 commands, that'd obviously fix my problem as the only goal (for now) is to get the proper resone in Hyperterminal.

What I want do is have reliable button presses if I a user presses the same key more than once. It's not practical for every button to be a ramp button and use the press/hold work around and I don't think it would fix the issue I'm having anyways.

To be clear, show me that the MSC-400 and MX-900 can operate as designed using a terminal client (Hyperterminal, RealTerm etc...) for single button presses, send me test files that prove this with a few custom RS232 commands you'll win the reward :)