USB to serial.

[cokekid]

I have a serial cable that works to get bash. On my friends laptop he doesnt have any serial ports. He has USB ports and PCMCIA slot.

Is it possible to use the USB to Serial cable that I see on ebay to connect to the serial cable then to the tivo to get bash? Has anyone had any luck?

Or is it better to get a PCMCIA DB9 serial card to connect to the serial cable?

[PlainBill]

I have a serial cable that works to get bash. On my friends laptop he doesnt have any serial ports. He has USB ports and PCMCIA slot.

Is it possible to use the USB to Serial cable that I see on ebay to connect to the serial cable then to the tivo to get bash? Has anyone had any luck?

Or is it better to get a PCMCIA DB9 serial card to connect to the serial cable?

Many people have reported success with the usb-serial adapter.

PlainBill

[cokekid]

is it better to get the USB to Serial Cable

or

PCMCIA Serial port card.

[jt1134]

I don't know about a PCMCIA port card, but I've used a usb-to-serial adapter just like the one in the link for quite a while now.

[PlainBill]

is it better to get the USB to Serial Cable

or

PCMCIA Serial port card.

Perhaps you should abandon the coke and switch to Pepsi. A usb-serial adapter can be used on any system which has a usb port - just about anything built in the last 5 years. The PCMCIA card can only be used on a system with a PCMCIA slot - in other words a notebook.

PlainBill

[bcc]

Note that for one of the most popular usb serial dongles, the keyspan, the linux driver has been busted for about 6 months now. Thanks to a pissing match, the regression fix is taking forever to be integrated:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/726154
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7544

BTW, I do have the keyspan dongle and it worked fine under linux before 2.6.18.

[cokekid]

I am aware where I can use a PCMCIA or USB card. I just wanted to know if anyone has used either of them in conjunction with a serial cable in order to get bash.

[rbautch]

I use this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812184003) adapter, and it works perfectly on my laptop (XP pro) for serial bash. Can't beat the price either.

[Dave20042004]

Here's the puzzle.

My daughter has a non-hacked Series 1 with lifetime sub. Her apartment has no land line and she has no serial or PS2 ports on her laptop, only USB. Her laptop shares an internet connection with a neighbor through wireless.

She brought it home temporarily and I can easily do a Serial PPP update from my home computer (my computer has a serial port, 1/8"mini jack to DB9 cable).

To allow updates from her apartment, I'm interested in going serial PPP using 1/8" minijack to USB. Has anyone had success getting updates using this approach? Can someone guide me to the pinouts for the two ends? Do I need to run a software driver so the laptop thinks it has a com port?

Thanks in advance,
Dave

[Narf54321]

Seems like a lot of kludging to get the Tivo guide data.
Why not go over to 9thtee.com and see if they've still got those Series-1 wireless Turbonet adapters.

[Dave20042004]

Thanks for your suggestion Narf but:
1. The Airnet card is $70 + ship
2. A wireless card is another $50 + ship or so, not to mention antenna issues.
3. She may not be in that apartment long so I'm not counting on a permanent wireless solution.
4. Don't need hacks, just need guide updates.

My son had a similar situation but luckily he had a DB9 COM port on his computer and Serial PPP is very very simple. Just use ,#211 as a dialing option and use a null modem cable. I paid about $4 for the proper ends and he was all set. He's moving in December but as long as his desktop has internet (wired or wireless), he is done. I'd like to design my daughters solution based on her computer also. Unfortunately that's USB and theres not a lot of posts on it. I did see where Eastwind was using serial over USB for Bash so maybe someone is doing Serial PPP over USB.

So once again I ask, anyone with Serial PPP over USB experience?
Thanks in advance,
Dave

[Dave20042004]

For my Prolific Chip USB-Serial adapter,
EBAY: USB to Serial 9-pin RS232 DB9 PROLIFIC Adapter + Cable $1.42

a combination of speed and pauses eventually worked:
1. 115200 (would not work)
2. 57600 required two pauses ie. ,#257,,
3. 38400 required one puse ie. ,#238,

Actually, I started at 9600 or ,#296, and it worked fine so I started increasing speed.

I hope this information helps others. You don't need to spend big $ to get updates. The cable even doubles as a spare printer cable. Sweet..

Dave

[Narf54321]

Sweet! I think you have successfully navigated some uncharted waters here.