On Feb 23, 10:35*am, jcarlyle wrote:
Forgot to mention that a USB-Serial adapter will ONLY work if the
program on the PC is written for Windows. A program written for DOS
will go straight to the hardware, which doesn't exist when you use a
USB-Serial adapter. To get the hardware for DOS programs, you need
something like a PCMCIA to serial adapter.

-John
[snip]


I could not resist the ONLY in caps. That would be only EXCEPT if you
run Windows (or even real MS-DOS) within a VMware virtual machine with
the USB-serial adapter running on the host OS. Then the software in
the virtual machine won't care and cannot tell there is a USB adapter
involved.

I use a Keyspan USA-19HS on my MacBook Pro and can connect Windows
running in a VMware Fusion virtual machine to this device on the Host
OS. Software in the virtual machine will see a standard UART physical
interface and cannot tell there is a USB adapter involved so should
work fine with MS-DOS or Windows applications. It has worked for the
serial apps I've tried to a C302. Virtual is the new physical.

Darryl