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Martyn Thompson
September 21st, 2012, 06:46 PM
Hi everyone,

I am using a Windows only piece of software called Suunto Dive Manager and running it through Wine (standard Ubuntu install of Wine).

The problem I have is that I am running this on my laptop which doesn't have any serial ports. The hardware connection is serial but I am using a cable converter so I can fit connect to the USB ports on the laptop. This seems to work well and looking at dmesg|tail reveals:


[ 415.752177] usb 3-2: new full-speed USB device number 3 using ohci_hcd
[ 415.920579] pl2303 3-2:1.0: pl2303 converter detected
[ 415.942821] usb 3-2: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0


The Suunto Dive Manager expects to read from a COM port.

So, the question I have is, is there a way in which I can forward the USB0 to a COM port and if so, how do I do it?

Alternatively, am I barking up the wrong tree and has anyone got other advice?

drdos2006
September 21st, 2012, 10:54 PM
Check this out.

http://www.lvr.com/usb_virtual_com_port.htm
[quote]
The important information is :
COM ports have long provided a convenient way for PCs and embedded systems to exchange information. The traditional COM port on a PC is an RS-232 serial port on a motherboard or expansion card. Recent PCs often skip RS-232 in favor of USB. But with the right firmware, a USB device can appear as a virtual COM port that applications can access using .NET's SerialPort class or other COM-port APIs or libraries.
[\quote]

You might find it easier to access a box with a serial port rather than having to add firmaware.

regards

Martyn Thompson
September 22nd, 2012, 10:30 PM
Cheers for that DrDos. I wondered if that might be the case.

I do have a full sized desktop system upstairs so will need to use that I reckon.

Thanks for the advice.