Remember serial ports?

[yesthattom]

I need to connect to the serial port of a machine at home. Now if I was at work, I would simply connect it to our serial port console server. But at home? I haven’t had a laptop with a serial port in ages. The last time I needed one I bought a USB<->Serial adaptor.... which I can’t find right now.

UGH!

Comments

[mrfantasy.livejournal.com]

If you're still in this bind over the weekend I can loan you my spare one, if I can find it.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

That would be awesome. Can you check to see if it works on a Mac?

I now realize that I had two of them... one bought for work at cibernet. I hope they didn't both get left behind when I left. (The one that works so well on the Mac is this Keyspan USA-19HS

[snowboardjoe.livejournal.com]

Yep, I've got one of those and it's worked for years. Of course, you're a bit far away to get that to you now. :( Works great on Mac and PC, although I think the installation was a bit easier on Windows for some strange reason.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

I recall the Mac installation being pretty easy. Best of all, it creates a /dev/ (two, actually, as per the Unix tradition) thus "tip" and other Unix utilities work with it. (unlike others which only work with .apps that use the serial communication toolbox)

Tom

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Yep! They work great under MacOS, so long as you find one that is readily recognized. I had one that various Apple patches to the OS irretrievably doomed to weird behavior. Best luck of late (10.3 and 10.4) has been a cheapo CP Technologies CP-US-03, which comes up without added drivers as clean as anything. They're like $14 from Provantage; even cheaper on eBay.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

If it is PC-only, would you be willing to bring a laptop? Shouldn't take very long to see what's coming out of that 9-pin port.

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

I've got a mini docking station sort of gadget for that sort of thing.

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

Yup.

I heart those. For when you gotta do it with a serial port.

(Not that I hate hate hate MyCo for making an instrument that requires a serial port and can't be reliably run on a USB to serial widget cos we never tested it for such things. Nah. I don't have issues or anything.)

Want more fun? How about an old fashioned parallel port?

[pyrzqxgl.livejournal.com]

My mini docking station sort of gadget has a parallel port too. And when my new Vista laptop shows up I'll find out whether it will work with it too, or only with XP.

[lonesomepolecat.livejournal.com]

You could just buy a Cyclades ;-)

http://cgi.ebay.com/CYCLADES-ALTERPATH-ACS-48_W0QQitemZ160118497721QQihZ006QQcategoryZ11175QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the excellent suggestion. I'll forward it to the committee.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

The metric web site listed on your profile isn't responding, eh?

[okelle.livejournal.com]

They have become as hard to find as those Mac to PC monitor jack adjusters.

I think I had one at one point but gave it away with the laser printer I bought it for. Speaking of the comic-book affect with technology: I bought that laserprinter for $30, but the cartridges cost $75.

[pir.livejournal.com]

Keyspan USB serial adaptors work on any OS you'd want to use (and probably a couple that you wouldn't want to). I bought a couple after I found out the older (and physically smaller) ones I had didn't have drivers for OSX on Intel hardware.