9-pin Serial Port to HP XZ355 Notebook

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

I have an old but good Fujifilm MX-1700 Zoom digital camera, which came
with a 9 pin serial cable. No USB cable apparently available for this
camera. On my HP notebook, there is no 9-pin port, so I am thinking I
need to get a USB-to-serial cable. At Radio Shack they have one of
these for $40. This is more than I am willing to spend, so I looked on
EBay, and found a whole bunch of these cables, starting at under $10.

I also noticed that on my HP notebook there is a female port which looks
similar to a serial port, but has 15 pins (more or less). Is this a
game port or ???

Does anybody have experience with a USB-to-serial cable? Bad or good?
I believe I have to install a driver also, when I use this cable,
correct? If I have two USB ports, and use one for my mouse, will this
be a problem? (Using one as a USB port and the other as a serial port.)

Thanks for reading all this!

- Gabe Strasser

Archived from groups: comp.sys.hp.hardware (More info?)

I think I probably wasted the money on the serial-to-USB cable. I just
found out that apparently this digital camera is not compatible with
Windows XP. I will try using it, with the "compatibilty" feature on XP,
but I don't have much faith in that.

The smart thing to do, which I should have thought of earlier, is to
obtain a Smartmedia reader which plugs directly into the USB port. I've
seen these for as little as $12.

- Gabe

Gabriel Strasser wrote:
> I have an old but good Fujifilm MX-1700 Zoom digital camera, which came
> with a 9 pin serial cable. No USB cable apparently available for this
> camera. On my HP notebook, there is no 9-pin port, so I am thinking I
> need to get a USB-to-serial cable. At Radio Shack they have one of
> these for $40. This is more than I am willing to spend, so I looked on
> EBay, and found a whole bunch of these cables, starting at under $10.
>
> I also noticed that on my HP notebook there is a female port which looks
> similar to a serial port, but has 15 pins (more or less). Is this a
> game port or ???
>
> Does anybody have experience with a USB-to-serial cable? Bad or good?
> I believe I have to install a driver also, when I use this cable,
> correct? If I have two USB ports, and use one for my mouse, will this
> be a problem? (Using one as a USB port and the other as a serial port.)
>
> Thanks for reading all this!
>
> - Gabe Strasser