USB to RS232 serial adapter, work on Mac?

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Level 1

13 points

USB to RS232 serial adapter, work on Mac?

I found an old Wacom table with a serial plug. I would like to connect it to my G5 or Mac Pro. You can get a USB to RS232 adapter but the manufacturer lists only PC compatibility. Are they just hedging? Is it possible that if I connect it all up that it'll work?

4 x 2.5 GHz G5, 4GB ram, Mac OS X (10.5.2)

Posted on May 30, 2008 12:34 PM

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Answer 1

sdagley

Level 1

30 points

May 30, 2008 12:48 PM in response to Hal Dace

You can get a USB-to-serial adapter with Mac drivers: http://www.keyspan.com/products/usa19hs/

The trick will be getting the old Wacom tablet recognized by a tablet driver once it's connected, and I wouldn't be surprised if you're out of luck there based on comments on this page: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/drivers/wacomtablets.html

Message was edited by: sdagley

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Answer 2

Hal Dace Author

Level 1

13 points

May 30, 2008 1:28 PM in response to sdagley

dang. Maybe os x will recognize it as a usb device?

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Answer 3

johnsock

Level 1

66 points

May 30, 2008 8:40 PM in response to Hal Dace

Sorry, that won't work either. I've used a USB to RS-232 adapter for a few items, but mainly for programming my universal remote. I've used it in OSX and Windows and both operating systems recognize it as a standard serial port. This works fine with software that is expecting a device connected via RS-232, but it will not make the device appear to have a USB connection. It just makes the operating system see a standard RS-232 serial port.

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