[NBLUG/talk] Connecting an old USR Sportster to USB

Kyle Rankin kyle at nblug.org
Wed Jan 30 15:07:35 PST 2013


On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 02:52:52PM -0800, Walter Hansen wrote:
> Today I went to go hook up an external modem to one of our servers. It's running an older version of debian. I had forgot that I have a temperature and humidity sensing system hooked up to the com port. It's pretty sweet, monitors the temp on the room and each individual machine and I have it hooked up to email me about anything unusual and text my phone with anything really serious. In the old building leaving the sever room door open was enough for it to start emailing me. 
> 
> Anyway, it only has one serial port and several USB ports. So two solutions come to mind. One is a Serial to USB adapter, and the other is getting a card with a couple of serial ports on it. I wonder which course of action has the least headache involved and is such hardware available locally? 
> 
> 

The advantage to a Serial->USB adapter is that you could connect the device
up to a laptop or other computer in the future that may not be able to
accept an add-on serial port card. 

Before you buy a bunch of adapters though I'd buy one and confirm that it
works for your uses. I've had some serial->USB adapters in the past that
wouldn't forward break symbols (important when you are connected to network
hardware) and some that didn't work with my X10 serial adapter either.

-- 
Kyle Rankin
The North Bay Linux Users' Group
http://nblug.org
IRC: greenfly at irc.freenode.net #nblug 
kyle at nblug.org



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