Serial Device & No Serial Port

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

Ballpoint wrote:
> Is there some type of Serial To USB adapter that I could use for my
> graphics tablet? I want to do some animation on the road but I have
> the serial edition tablet and a laptop with no serial port.
>
> TIA
>
> Ballpoint

Belkin makes a serviceable serial to USB adapter that works for *most*
serial devices. From my experience with it, the only requirements are
that the device driver can be installed in the OS, even though there is
no physical serial port, and a COM port can be defined. The serial to
USB adapter is then set to address that COM port. So the first thing to
verify is that you can install the tablet to the laptop. COM4 is a
commonly available port, and is the default port for the Belkin adapter.
There are other adapters that might work as well.

Q

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

"Ballpoint" <cantevenhint@itthese.days> wrote in message news:<6Uo5d.2807$By5.306315@read2.cgocable.net>...
> Is there some type of Serial To USB adapter that I could use for my graphics
> tablet? I want to do some animation on the road but I have the serial
> edition tablet and a laptop with no serial port.
>
> TIA
>
> Ballpoint

Best bet is a PCMCIA serial port card:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ [...] 42-4068717

Also see:
http://store.yahoo.com/westcoastmi [...] cseio.html

which would require the use of a PCMCIA to CF adapter, but is a little
more compact to carry around (but more fragile).

Not cheap, at $50-60, compared to $15-20 for a USB to serial port
adapter,

http://store.elementsource.com/btose9cocaus.html

Sometimes the USB to serial adapters will work, but some older devices
require a real I/O mapped serial port with IRQ 4 or 3, and the legacy
serial port address.