Posts: 709
Threads: 104
Joined: Nov 2005
Quote:
Such adapters carry electronics that translate between the serial protocol, which is just levels on the wire, to USB, which has a good deal more smarts. So your seral/USB adapter contains logic that identifies to a host system as a serial interface, for example.
I've been successfully using a Radio Shack serial/USB adapter on my ThinkPad T40 under SuSE Linux 9.3. It works great for the 48G and for anything else I've thrown at it. I can't imagine the support would be any less on Window$. But you aren't going to get a speedup compared to the serial interface. That's because the 48G is limited in what it can push out its serial port.
As for software, you HP connection kit should handle either USB or serialally connected calculators.
I too use the Radio Shack converter. The accompanying disc comes with Windows drivers, but you can also use the drivers from Prolific (the converter is in fact a Radio Shack branded PL2303).
http://www.prolific.com.tw/eng/Products.asp?ID=59
Under Linux, it uses the usbserial and pl2303 drivers. The adaptor works well under both Windows and Linux.
I should be getting my HP38G cable pretty soon. It too has a serial plug. We'll see how well it works with the convert.