Getting the most out of USB to RS232

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Do you constantly finding yourself having trouble with USB to RS232 conversions on your old laptop? If so, you’re simply not alone. Many many people have older refurbished laptops that still support serial connections, but may not actually have a standard USB interface. If you’ve gone up to the attic recently and pulled down that old blocky laptop that weighs about as much as a cinder block, you know exactly what I’m talking about. So, let’s talk tonight about why you would definitely need to get a USB to RS232 adapter, what you’d use it for, and how much you’d expect to walk out the door paying. These are pretty crucial peripherals, so pay attention and stick with me.

As you might recall from our previous USB RS232 post, we talked about some of the down sides to using a simple serial connection versus USB. You might remember we discussed bus speed; that’s an important thing to note when you’re looking at using a USB to RS232 connector. You probably won’t be able to use the same peripherals as your newer laptops might be able to. For example, that new joystick that only comes in USB? That probably won’t work. The axes and motions are programmed to work properly with USB, not RS232. The same goes for these new All-In-One color laser printers. They require quite of data to be sent over a USB connection quickly, so if you try to convert USB to RS232 on your laptop, it’s probably not going to be too happy. That’s just one thing to keep in mind.

So, that being said, what can you use one of these USB to RS232 cable adapters for? RS232 adapters can be used for any number of applications, including older peripherals.

You heard right; if you have one of those old dot-matrix printers, your serial connection will be right at home. Just kidding (or am I?). If you want to talk about newer peripherals, many audio/visual systems utilize RS232, which would even allow you to go the opposite way. You could use this type of adapter to plug into these high-end AV units with a USB interface, even if you don’t actually have a serial port. Disclaimer: This isn’t very well founded; this is simply based on a conversation I had with a friend a while back!

That should about cover it for tonight. I hope that you’ve all learned a thing or three. As always, comment below if you’d like.