while we're on the topic of conversion into serial, another option that I'm thinking about is PCMCIA to serial. I too have a laptop that is sadly lacking a serial port, as well as Zack, I know at least one other person right off who doesn't have a serial port on their laptop. It looks like their going the way of 3 1/2 inch floppy drives on laptops, obviously I prefer having a floppy drive, and of course a serial port too. I'm afraid this is becoming a trend, and the community is going to have to adapt to it. obviously USB to serial is probably not the answer, but I found a company that manufactures PCMCIA to serial, and, I figure, Because they share electronic fundamentals with native bus architectures such as PCI and ISA, they function exactly like standard COM ports and should be able to be addressed as such by most application software. (of course that's also what the manufactures say about USB to serial converters), the address for the particular product I'm interested in is: http://www.quatech.com/catalog/rs232_pcmcia.php I'm curious what you folks think about this possibility, its drawbacks as well as its benefits. one benefit besides the obvious one if it succeeds, is that the frequency of a laptop not having both a serial and PCMCIA port is virtually unheard of, but again, I could be wrong, and If I am, please tell me. Thanks. Lorne
