No serial port on laptop

[slamdunk]

I'm back home in Canada for 6 weeks and my brother has kindly give me access to his laptop so I can do a backup. Of course it's quite new so it has no serial port on it. I saw on this site not long ago that someone had some success over coming if problem with a USB Serial Adapter Part # F5U103 from Belkin. Can some on give me some specific info on exactly what I need from these people so I don't end up ordering the wrong thing. Or does anyone have an alternative solution to the problem (this adater is way too bulky). I also noticed on Belkins site that the USB Serial Adapter worked with windows 95,98,2000, but nothing about XP. I'm planing on buying a laptop of my own sometime in the near future and I'm sure it will have XP loaded on it. What then? Has anyone got a new laptop with XP and no serial port? What are you doing to over come this? Thanks for any help with this.
Duncan

[MikeMcC]

The "USB to Serial Converter" which Clove Technology in the UK offer seems to be a neater solution - http://tinyurl.com/sax5 (http://tinyurl.com/sax5) - though obviously that would involve waiting for it to be shipped out to Canada.

[donkeyontheedge]

As its a laptop, it should have an IR port so you could always try using that.

You may have problems with IRCOMM/OBEX (think that's correct - MS changed IR between W98 and W2K) but there are ways around this if you search the forums.

John

[netBookBabe]

Originally posted by MikeMcC
The "USB to Serial Converter" which Clove Technology in the UK offer seems to be a neater solution - http://tinyurl.com/sax5 (http://tinyurl.com/sax5) - though obviously that would involve waiting for it to be shipped out to Canada. Just to say that I've had a couple of occasions to be involved with shipment of Psion accessories from Clove to users in North America - S&H charges were very reasonable and they were quick to despatch. Personally, I regularly send parcels to USA and Canada - they normally take about 4-5 days to arrive.

Julie

[slamdunk]

Thanks to everyone for the info. Sounds like the cable from clove will solve my problems. I have to say though, that the post by donkeyontheedge is very interesting. I had no idea that the psion could communicate with a laptop useing the IR ports. Surely this must be the simplist solution as most laptop have IR ports. If someone would be kind enough to sent me some info on this that would be great. Please keep in mind I have no idea what things like "IRCOMM/OBEX" are. Of course that does mean that I can't learn, well...as long as it's not to involved. Thanks again

[MikeMcC]

I had no idea that the psion could communicate with a laptop useing the IR ports. Surely this must be the simplist solution as most laptop have IR ports. If someone would be kind enough to sent me some info on this that would be great.Basically, PsiWin only supports serial connections and therefore, in order to connect with Infrared, it is necessary to use IrCOMM protocol. This protocol emulates Serial and Parallel connections by creating a Virtual IR COM port (serial) and Virtual IR LPT port (parallel).

This was quite straightforward in Windows 95, 98 and ME which support IrCOMM by default. However, in Windows 2000 and XP, Microsoft changed the way that IR is implementd by using IrOBEX (Infrared Object Exchange) instead. This means that, in order to run PsiWin over IR with 2000 or XP, a patch has to be installed to implement IrCOMM. Have a look at this page on my website for details of the patch you need for XP www.mgmcc.myby.co.uk/W2k_ir.htm (http://www.mgmcc.myby.co.uk/W2k_ir.htm)

[slamdunk]

Just want to thank everyone for there help. If I make a connection with that laptop using the IR I'll post a note letting everybody know of my success. If not... I'll just sit here and feel shame. Wish me luck.