On Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:06:32 -0500, vitamin wrote: > Beartooth wrote: >> On Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:49:36 -0500, vitamin wrote: [...] >> > You didn't answer the question. Are you really connecting this device >> > to a serial port on your PC? Or a USB port? >> Sorry, I thought I did. The end of the cable at the PC has >> several pins in a trapezoid, and screws on both sides; it's also >> several times bigger than a USB port, and by no means flat. >> >> To use it (rarely, but sometimes) with a T42 Thinkpad, which I >> bought without realizing it lacked a *serial* port, I had to buy a >> special card, which has a very short cable like an ethernet cable plug >> at one end, and a gadget with pins and screws on the other. > > > Ok sounds like a PC-Card with a standard 9-pin serial port on it. I'm > asking because it's hard to guess which port is your device connected > to. The card is only on the machine I use *least* for these apps; it runs only XP, no linux at all; that's the T42. I use it for maps when I have to; otherwise it never gets booted. The house contains five desktop-sized computers including an erstwhile server (a Dell Poweredge SC1420, which belongs to a list I helped start up, and which I'll probably buy; it has two physical serial ports); two thinkpads (a T30 and a T42); and a little EeePC. Most are anything but new (one new this summer -- on my wife's desk, downstairs). The newest, my #1, the one we've been talking about, has two hard drives. Till now I've had to dual boot it to <retch> XP in order to do math apps, and use another for all my regular activities (or else fire up the T42 with the card, which is a lot of bother. Its only virtue is that it is portable.) On the XP drive, the GPSs do connect to the software suites, with the same cables attached to the same spot on the back of the case. They all or nearly all have wine 1.x installed; but only on my #1 have I managed (so far -- first recent attempt) to get any map software to actually launch, let alone run. The three newer ones were all built to my budget by a friend who does me that favor; he sees to it that each has one physical serial port, just for the GPSs. The oldest second-hand one also has one physical serial port. The T30 still has a serial port, and runs Fedora; it's a guestroom loaner. I installed wine on it, but was unable to get any of my map software to launch under wine, much less run. > Then it should be com1 (ttyS0) unless you have some "hidden" ones, like > modem for example. You might want to check with some hardware > information program what all serial ports you have. The only hardware browser I've been able to find is called lshw, with lshw-gui; I fired it up on this machine, read through everything line by line, and found the word "serial" only in contexts where it meant "serial number." Other than the difference between serial and USB, everything I know about hardware would go comfortably in a gnat's eye. What am I looking for? Is it possible for a machine with only one physical serial connector to have multiple serial ports? I thought a port was a physical thing, like an ethernet port, a telephone line port, or a VGA connector -- a male or female object of a certain shape and number of connectors, like a power cord/plug. -- Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert Remember I know precious little of what I am talking about.
