I believe that *any* method can be called asynchronously using code
similar to the following which I took from MSDN2:

Imports System
Imports System.Threading
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Namespace Examples.AdvancedProgramming.AsynchronousOperations
   Public Class AsyncDemo
       ' The method to be executed asynchronously.
       Public Function TestMethod(ByVal callDuration As Integer, _
               <Out> ByRef threadId As Integer) As String
           Console.WriteLine("Test method begins.")
           Thread.Sleep(callDuration)
           threadId = Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId()
           return String.Format("My call time was {0}.",
callDuration.ToString())
       End Function
   End Class

   ' The delegate must have the same signature as the method
   ' it will call asynchronously.
   Public Delegate Function AsyncMethodCaller(ByVal callDuration As
Integer, _
       <Out> ByRef threadId As Integer) As String
End Namespace

Imports System
Imports System.Threading
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Namespace Examples.AdvancedProgramming.AsynchronousOperations
   Public Class AsyncMain
       Shared Sub Main()
           ' The asynchronous method puts the thread id here.
           Dim threadId As Integer

           ' Create an instance of the test class.
           Dim ad As New AsyncDemo()

           ' Create the delegate.
           Dim caller As New AsyncMethodCaller(AddressOf
ad.TestMethod)

           ' Initiate the asynchronous call.
           Dim result As IAsyncResult = caller.BeginInvoke(3000, _
               threadId, Nothing, Nothing)

           Thread.Sleep(0)
           Console.WriteLine("Main thread {0} does some work.", _
                Thread.CurrentThread.ManagedThreadId)

           ' Call EndInvoke to Wait for the asynchronous call to
complete,
           ' and to retrieve the results.
           Dim returnValue As String = caller.EndInvoke(threadId,
result)

           Console.WriteLine("The call executed on thread {0}, with
return value ""{1}"".", _
               threadId, returnValue)
       End Sub
   End Class

End Namespace

Hi,

Shouldn't every method support the begin/end asynch .NET pattern ?
<<

No.  It is a serial class, not something else.  It uses a worker thread for
reading serial data, so adding a delegate method (another thread) is
superflous, IMO.

You can write a wrapper (simply, IMO) to do the things that you find to be
missing.  BTW, you can use the NewLine property to define a special charater
to be used for the ReadLine and WriteLine methods, if you want.  However, if
you want to mix a special charcter or characters... You can do what I
recommend anyway.  Simply write your own parsing code that is called from as
a result of data received in the OnComm event.

I have example code in my book that covers 99.9% of every simple serial
requirement.  If there is something specific that you want to do, post a
message to the newsgroup.  If I can provide an answer with a reasonable
amount of effor, I will try to do so.

Dick