What platform does that code run under?
This is closets I could find to explaining that function call, it is for m the help manual for liberty basic. Which is windows only. Both python modules are portable on windows,linux and mac.
Using USPP I think the code translates (roughly) to:
from uspp import *
from time import strftime
tty=SerialPort("COM1", 1000, 9600)
tty.write("01,TEMP?")
a = tty.read()
b = tty.read()
c = tty.read()
d = tty.read()
e = tty.read()
f = tty.read()
print '%s %d %d %d %d' % (strftime(''%H:%M:%S')c,d,e,f)
Because I can't get the refernce material online, I am not sure I am using the read method properly.