I just went through the exercise of finding a "good" USB to serial
converter. Talking with Larry Berg at pfranc.com, I found that he no
longer sells a USB to serial converter. Apparently the manufacturer
didn't want to improve the drivers, which Larry determined to be the
source of most problems. I also discovered that the Belken adapter is
no longer sold, so unless you can find a used one it isn't an option
anymore.

Larry recommended USB to serial adapters that use the Prolific chip,
especially the PL2303 chip. Since I already have an adapter that uses
this chip (an Iomega GUC232A), I decided to buy an adapter that uses
the FTDI chip. I therefore got an EasySync ES-U-1001-R10, which uses
the FT232RQ chip.

It seems that most USB to serial adapters don't support Vista;
apparently the driver situation is not settled for Vista yet. If you
stick to Win98 SE through XP, though, good drivers are reportedly
available (but you might have to download them from the adapter
manufacturer's site to get the latest version).

For what it's worth, my Iomega GUC232A has worked with over 25 serial
devices manufactured by 5 different companies. I'm using a driver from
Prolific dated 11/12/2003, v2.0.0.9 under Win98 SE, and a driver from
ATEN dated 7/16/2003, v2.0.0.18 under XP Pro. a friend's Volkslogger
was the first RS232 device I'd seen that ever gave me trouble, and was
the reason that I bought the EasySync.

To the OP - I use the Iomega GUC232A under both Win98 SE and under XP
Pro to talk to my Cambridge Model 10 and Model 25 FDRs. The programs I
use are SeeYou and Cambridge Aero Explorer Plus. The DOS program data-
cam won't work with either USB to serial adapter, it only works with a
dedicated serial port.

-John

On Oct 20, 7:24 am, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
As for USB-serial adapters, I've had a pfranc one for a while. Its
probably not the cheapest adapter but it 'just works'http://www.pfranc.com/