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| I've been looking at laptops to replace my old reliable, but none of the cheapies I've looked at has a serial port. Need a serial port to connect to my GPS/guidance stuff.
Is there a simple solution, like a USB to serial converter cable? Thanks in advance! Dave |
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roaming | there are several options
1 - buy a more expensive laptop; there are still some models with integrated serial ports
2 - USB-to-serial adapters; some work better than others. Do a forum search here or on the Precision Talk forum for recommendations
3 - PCMCIA-to-serial adapters; generally more expensive but also more reliable than USB-to-serial adapters. Requires that your laptop have a PCMCIA card slot (newer ones, especially Dells or netbooks, may not) |
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Minnesota | Get one of these: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.as...
That is the only USB to serial adapter that I have found that works on just about anything. I program a lot of fire alarms, security systems, etc at work and it works on everything. |
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West TN | I just recently bought a cheap PCMCIA to RS232 serial adapter for my laptop to update the firmware our BoomPilot. Only cost $12 off eBay. Straight from Hong Kong. Surprised that it worked, but it ended up working great. |
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Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | When I decided I wanted a laptop I had the same concerns about a serial port. For this reason I bought a used laptop which was an older IBM. It is aThinkPad that has a true serial port.
Its not as fast as a new one but works out well for my purposes. I use it as my music source (MP3's) in the shop. I can do the various updates/setups that are needed with some of my Precsion equipment (GPS etc.) I have a desktop machine for doing my other computer tasks.
I converted all my music holdings to the MP3 format and have them on an external USB hard drive. I have an older stereo receiver for a sound system and just plug a cable into the laptop headphone jack and run it to a pair of RCA plugs on the receiver which are designated VCR.
I have the computer set to go to the MP3 music folder. I then usually "Play All" at random. Of course I can pick and choose or make a playlist also.
Edited by tedbear 8/15/2009 18:10
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C IL | We use bluetooth serial adapters at work - they're a bit more expensive, but the convenience factor is worth it for us. You can use it with Windows Mobile-type devices if you have need.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833139008&nm_...
I'm getting a bit over my head here, but we have encountered some complications using serial adapters (USB/bluetooth) with certain equipment at my internship (something in all of the weather stations/dataloggers/bluetooth GPS/etc). I think maybe the computer semi-permanently assigns some sort of virtual COM port number/ID to every different USB device you attach to the computer. Some devices/software require that number to be low (basically assuming a hardwired serial port is assigned a low number). If you hook up lots of stuff before you hook up your USB serial adapter, it will be assigned a higher number which may not work for some of the aforementioned devices/software. I think we fixed this by going into BIOS or registry and deleting a bunch of the assigned virtual COM ports.
How that I think about it more, it was maybe using a bluetooth GPS receiver to read into ArcGIS 9.x - so maybe a software issue.
Haven't done much with our GPS/guidance stuff at home - haven't needed to use a serial adapter there - but it's information in case someone maybe has some issues with it. I know it took my friend a couple of weeks off and on to track down this problem/solution. |
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Serial port advice?
