My new computer lacks serial ports. I guess they went the way of the
floppy drive. I have a USB-Serial converter, but the Starsoft program
only works with serial?

Anybody faced this before?

Ish

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 22:42:00 GMT, ISH wrote:

My new computer lacks serial ports. I guess they went the way of the
floppy drive. I have a USB-Serial converter, but the Starsoft program
only works with serial?

Anybody faced this before?

To the program, a USB-serial converter *is* a serial port. I never
heard of anyone writing code that talked directly to the driver - it's
much easier to just write code that talks to the serial port and let
the driver make up the difference.

Two caveats:

1) Make sure that you have the latest driver for your converter. Some
converters work fine on older drivers - for just about every device
except scanners.

2) Look in Device Manager to see what port number Windows assigned the
converter (when the converter is connected, of course). Use that
number in the program. Also be aware that if you move the converter
to another USB port, Windows will find "a new device" and install it
to a different port number. You can manually (in Device Manager)
change the port numbers for "all" the converters on all your USB ports
to the same serial port number, so your program doesn't have to be
changed if you move the cable. (Credit Andy Porrett for that last
one.)

If you know all this, ignore the post, but someone else may benefit
from it.

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 21:11:16 -0500, Al Klein
wrote:

On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 22:42:00 GMT, ISH wrote:

My new computer lacks serial ports. I guess they went the way of the
floppy drive. I have a USB-Serial converter, but the Starsoft program
only works with serial?

Anybody faced this before?

To the program, a USB-serial converter *is* a serial port. I never
heard of anyone writing code that talked directly to the driver - it's
much easier to just write code that talks to the serial port and let
the driver make up the difference.

Two caveats:

1) Make sure that you have the latest driver for your converter. Some
converters work fine on older drivers - for just about every device
except scanners.

2) Look in Device Manager to see what port number Windows assigned the
converter (when the converter is connected, of course). Use that
number in the program. Also be aware that if you move the converter
to another USB port, Windows will find "a new device" and install it
to a different port number. You can manually (in Device Manager)
change the port numbers for "all" the converters on all your USB ports
to the same serial port number, so your program doesn't have to be
changed if you move the cable. (Credit Andy Porrett for that last
one.)

If you know all this, ignore the post, but someone else may benefit
from it.


Al ,
I didn't know that.......

Thanks to you, I can now program my scanner! It works!
Thank you.
Ish

On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 03:37:46 GMT, ISH wrote:

Thanks to you, I can now program my scanner! It works!
Thank you.

Have fun.

By the way, Wall-Mart has a serial to USB converter which Robert
Sillett of ShortWaveLog fame says he has found to be reliable and
available all across America.

Quoting from his FAQ

"Q: Can I use a USB-to-serial port adapter?

A: It is getting more and more difficult to find a computer with a real
serial port. Many times a USB-to-Serial adapter needs to be used. If
you currently have a USB-to-Serial adapter and it works for you, great!
But if you are looking for an adapter, we recommend the IOgear GUC232A
adapter. This adapter works very well and it also fully works with the
Sysinternals Portmon serial monitor tool, which is a great tool for
troubleshooting. Plus the IOgear adapter is only $25 or so and, as of
Winter 2005, can be found in pretty much every Wal-Mart."

Freeware computer controlled radio and logging program at:

http://www.shortwavelog.com/default-english.html

On Wed, 21 Dec 2005 04:05:00 +0000 (UTC), chesucat
wrote:

piggybacking

ISH wrote:
IMy new computer lacks serial ports. I guess they went the way of the
Ifloppy drive. I have a USB-Serial converter, but the Starsoft program
Ionly works with serial?

A USB port, when you install the driver for a USB-serial converter,
*is* a serial port. The software can't see any difference between the
driver for RS-232 hardware and the driver for USB hardware. Just make
sure that you use the latest driver, which you may have to download
from the manufacturer's site. (Software no longer talks to the
hardware - it talks to drivers.)

However:

The Radio Shack adapter works with the driver supplied
The adapter Wal-Mart sells works with the driver supplied (and is
probably the cheapest one)
The Belkin F5U409 works, but you need the F5U109 driver from their
site