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Author Topic: PC USB-to-Serial adapters Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-16-2003 06:20 PM                        I am thinking about buying a new notebook. Many attractive new ones come without the serial connector we all know is needed for such favourite tools as Dolby and SDDS setup programs. We have already widely discussed running those programs on a Mac under Virtual PC using such an adapter. I know that there are similar adapters available for PCs which plug into the USB port and have a serial connector on the other side. Is anybody familiar with them? Do they work for cinema applications such as hooking up the notebook to a Dolby or Sony processor?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 01-16-2003 06:46 PM                        In theory you shouldn't have any problem with the USB <-> Serial adapter with applications that run under Windows 98 and later, like the SDDS software. You'll probably have problems with software that runs under native DOS or a DOS4G / DOS4GW if you don't have a DOS device driver to 'make it happen'. If I can find my USB <-> Serial adapter I'll try it out. I think I left it up north though, so it'll be awhile.  |  IP: Logged Greg Mueller Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1687 From: Port Gamble, WA Registered: Jun 99 posted 01-16-2003 07:43 PM                        These puppies can get expensive. I'm running Windoz XP on a laptop and had a real headache getting my adapter to work. Apprently XP is not real friendly to IO. The unit I bought was a pcmcia Ruggedized Dual IO Card by Socket Communications. It took sometime and a few phone calls (and one exchange) to get it to work. It works now but what a pain. They are constantly improving these things and I would imagine they've figured it out by now, but who knows. I should also mention that this same card apparently worked fine under Windoz 2K The ones I hear are better than others are the Quatech DSU-100 and the EdgePort 421. You can also get a variety of these adapters really cheap, but they have a variety of problems, and getting them to work them same way every time can be difficult  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 01-16-2003 07:46 PM                        Of course you can always go with a docking station, if the machine supports one, but that doesn't look so cool does it.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-16-2003 10:49 PM                        XP doesn`t allow programs to directly access the hardware. SDDS setup does not work under XP. It runs, but it doesn`t communicate with the serial port. WinDRAS works under XP. It would be nice if such an adapter came with a driver that emulates direct hardware access for the programs and then passes the data on to the USB port. Then there should be no problems. I am not familiar with the signal structure on the USB port. Does anyone know if the conversion to serial data takes places in the adapter or if it is done by software?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 01-16-2003 10:57 PM                        It's generally a software emulated serial port. The software converts the serial data into a dataform compatible with the USB interface. The adapter itself converts the 'USB data' back into RS-232 compliant serial data. The same works in reverse.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 01-17-2003 10:45 AM                        Have you had an opportunity to try it with a DA20/500/650?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 01-17-2003 12:14 PM                        No but if I can find the darn cable I'll try it out with a CP-500. Normally I just use my Dell Inspiron that has a serial port but carrying around the lighter Latitude would be a lot nicer.  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 06-09-2003 10:25 PM                        I just tried it with a Toshiba notebook and an adapter from Belkin to a DA20. Of course, it didn`t work. What can be done about that? I imagine a lot of you out there also have newer notebooks without a serial port, so what adapters are you using?  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 06-10-2003 01:23 AM                        The USB to Serial adapter that I have been using has an FTDI (Future Technology Devices Intl Ltd. - http://www.ftdichip.com/FTApp.htm) FT8U232 chipset. I've been using it with Windows 2000 but there's no reason why it wouldn't work the same under XP. Anyway, WinDRAS locks up when it's used with the USB to Serial adapter but DRAS10 and Load500 work fine. Here's a picture of the (gray / silver) cable hooked up. Here's a blowup of the serial port end. [ 06-10-2003, 03:44 PM: Message edited by: Daryl C. W. O'Shea ]  |  IP: Logged Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 06-10-2003 02:13 AM                        quote: WinDRAS locks up when it's used with the USB to Serial adapter That sounds very promising! There doesn`t seem much that one can do except for trial-and-error testing of various adapters. Still, what is it that makes it so complicated for a variety of adapters to work? Under normal circumstances, the OS would hand the data to the serial port. I understand the adapter software emulates the port, but how can it be so difficult to make it work when the reversion from USB data back to serial data is a mirror process? What could be won from playing with the COM port settings? If any, which would be the settings most likely to reach a solution (data rate, parity, stop bit etc)?  |  IP: Logged Richard Hamilton Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1341 From: Evansville, Indiana Registered: Jan 2000 posted 06-10-2003 08:26 AM                     Michael, USB to Serial this shows a few tests. I have tried a Belkin F5U103 and it is a piece of junk. It is a little box that both cables plug into. It locked up my laptop when hooked to either a CP-650 or a Media Matrix. When I was in Canada last month, I found an adaptor that looks like the one that Daryl has, and it works fine with the equipment. There isn't a brand name on the cable, and the device comes up as a Prolific USB to Serial adaptor. Hope this helps, Rick  |  IP: Logged Jason Burroughs Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 654 From: Allen, TX Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-10-2003 09:44 AM                     More ane more laptops are comming with out serial port on them as they are generally considered part of a "legacy" system. The USB-Serial adapters should work, in theory. However I haven not seen much success in getting them to actually work on true serial devices. About the only thing that I've seen work successfully on a USB-Serial adapter is a PDA. I believe the problem lies in that is not true UART but emulated. Anything emulated never works as well as the real thing.  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-10-2003 10:08 AM                     I have used a Keyspan USB/Serial adaptor to hook my iBook to several things: Dolby Digital (DRAS 10 & WinDRAS)... U.S.L.'s DSP-60... Sony SDDS... Sync-ing Palm Pilots. Every one of them worked fine once I got the driver for the dongle installed properly and got the software that I am using to know where the drivers are located. When I used this dongle for Dolby, I had to run DRAS under Virtual PC and that's where the beauty of the thing lies. The emulator takes care of handling the dongle and its drivers. The "guest" software doesn't even know that it isn't running on a real PC, nor does it even know that it isn't talking through a real serial port. When run with an emulator like VPC, the guest OS and the guest application(s) run slower than they normally would but when you're talking about doing the kinds of things we do, speed isn't critical as long as the thing is fast enough to get the software to run. Now, even when NOT running under VPC and using Mac OS 9 or OS X I have not had very many troubles with the thing once I got it set up in the first place. The only thing I ever had happen was under OS 9. When I accessed the modem, the OS would switch the I/O stream away from the Keyspan adaptor and to the modem port. When I wanted to use the adaptor I would have to remember to put it back. Once I got updated to OS X this ceased to be a problem. OS X just "knows" what to do with the adaptor. When you plug the thing in, the Kernel Extension(s) for the thing load automatically. When you unplug the thing, the KEXTs unload. It seems to happen auto-magically! (Unless you listen for the sound of the HD when the software loads. ) I know that Win-95 (via VPC), DOS 6.6 (via VPC), OS 9 and OS X handle it well on the Mac. As to how other computers or OS-es handle the Keyspan (or other brands of) adaptors I can't attest.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 06-10-2003 04:08 PM                        The FTDI chipset based adapters are actual hardware UART chips. Probably why they seem to work 'better' than other adapters. Hmmm... maybe you could run the Dolby software under Virtual PC under BasiliskII on your PC. Mike, try running DRAS10 and Load500 using the adapter you have. I haven't had time to play with settings to get WinDRAS to work... if I do I'll let you know. If anybody wants one of the cables I have, I could mail you one. They cost about $80 CDN.  |  IP: Logged

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