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Society of Broadcast Engineers * Chapter 78 * Blue Ridge Area of Virginia
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| Serial-In-Your-Face and Eithernet (sic) Connections A lot of new equipment is set up and operated via serial and Ethernet ports. This is probably elementary and old-hat to those who are old-hands at this IT stuff, but thought we’d pass along some info we worked out the hard way. A coupla hints: 1). If a straight through serial cable is called for, verify that’s what you’ve got. Check pin-for-pin continuity if necessary. Save yourself a lotta grief. 2). If you use a serial-to-USB adaptor (‘cause yer computer don’t’ have a serial port) plug the adaptor into the computer’s USB port and use Windows Hardware Device Manager (XP) to verify what COM port the computer has assigned to your adaptor. My notebook assigned different COM port numbers to the same computer USB spigot depending on which adaptor I had plugged into it. Whattzatallabout? 3). When plugging the adaptor into the computer, sometimes the computer will “Find New Hardware” and sometimes not. If you need a new device driver install it; however, sometimes Windows may assign a generic system driver to your adaptor and you may wind up with a different name/model number other than what you actually have plugged in. Try it and see if it works; don’t waste time trying to install the “correct” driver over one that is already working. Don’t worry about it. Hope someone may find this helpful, or at least amusing, to watch the newbie squirm. -Al Stephens |
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