readbyte()

Blackjumper, I would amend your suggested code as follows:

Function ReadLetter()
my_e$=""
targetfile = ReadFile("YOUR WORDS HERE.txt")
if targetfile <> 0 then ; is the file handle valid ??
    while not eof(targetfile)
        e = ReadByte(targetfile)
        if e > 64 And e <91
          ;do something with the byte here, ie, my_e$=my_e$+chr$(e)
        endif
    wend
endif
;if my_e$ is NULL (ie empty) then nothing was read.
;what you do with this is up to you.
Return my_e$ 
End Function