25 Jun
2021
25 Jun
'21
7:24 a.m.
On 2021-06-25 2:48 a.m., Peter Corlett via cctalk wrote:
USB-serial dongles tend to be a wretched experience
for a couple of reasons.
The first is at the electrical layer: USB only has 5V available and
generating RICH CHUNKY VOLTS in such a small dongle is difficult and
expensive, so doesn't happen, and the voltage swing might not be wide enough
for older devices. The other is in the software layer: the standards are a
mess and the full gamut of serial protocols are not available and/or not
implemented properly.
Or if you change USB ports the serial COM# changes.
The physical connector and pinout is an irrelevance in comparison. I own a
soldering iron.
Well you can find mother boards with real COM port, but they are rare.
I just got a new system built, and mine has one hidden on it. No
connector for it however.
Ben.