[amsat-bb] Re: Macbook and U232-P9 serial

[Nate Duehr]

On Jan 29, 2008, at 5:12 PM, John Heaton wrote:
>
> since then I've used several keyspan adapters and all were picked up
> correctly by MacOSX.
>
>> http://www.keyspan.com/products/homepage.2.productList.Serial.spml
>>

In the past I've used IOGear's stuff also.

I did some minimal background checking, and it would appear that (of  
course) the chipset used by the manufacturer is the key (no pun  
intended) to whether or not most USB-to-serial devices work under Unix  
and Unix-like OS's like Linux and OS X.  (Technically I'm running OX  
10.5, so does that make it OS X.V?  Heh.)

I found that almost anything made by FTDI works on anything I plug  
them into, mainly because they publish standards for talking to their  
hardware (like all good hardware manufacturers do) whereas many of the  
cheap knock-offs haven't had drivers written for them.

So -- if manufacturers publish that they're using FTDI chipsets (few  
do this either), those are usually a "safe" bet.  That and always  
buying hardware from reputable retailers who will take back things  
that won't work without robbing you (so called "re-stocking" fees).

--
Nate Duehr, WY0X
nate at natetech.com