serial port I/O and pause
i employed the help of yesdogs' friend to write this .m file to collect data from an instrument connected to my laptop's serial port:
http://seismo.berkeley.edu/~lhsu/help/get9830.m
instead of prostituting oneself for matlab code (figuratively, not literally), one could start here:
Serial Port I/O introduction
http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/matlab_external/f105659...