LPG Discussion Forum

Ahh, Mac, computers for the hard of thinking.....

It should work fine under XP (although I'm surprised something old enough to have a serial port will run XP). Right click on My Computer, click the Hardware tab and click on Device Manager. You'll see the Ports listed and it may be that someone has disabled the COM port (or set it to something other than COM 1) as they didn't use it. Click the + next to ports, right click on the COM port and select Properties and it will tell you if it has been disabled and give you the option to enable or change the COM port it uses.

I just nearly posted an explanation of how to check ports are working in Device Manager, thought we were still on page 1 of this thread... then realised Gilbert had already explained on page 2 of this thread

I've no real clue. Running XP, I've got hold of a Dell with both Serial & USB.

Ahh, Mac, computers for the hard of thinking.....

I agree. Digging deep it's true genius.
My theory goes - Macs were left in the PC's wake for exactly this sort of thing. A Mac allows any fool to simply plug in. Done. My guess; Macs allocate ports and baud rates internally? Uncle Bill saw the real error in the business case for this.

Bill's genius is that PCs don't just work. For PCs to work, we have to know Bill's secret-sauce and non-knowledge.The genius of Microsoft is to exclude. Make it work, only not quite.

I'm guessing it's COM1. Baud rate is?

Macs were the go to computer for heavily graphical applications such as desk top publishing, video editing and CAD while pc's were better suited to more industrial purposes using serial and parallel comms (and still are in many industries) while Macs primarily used Firewire (IEEE 1394). Over the years, the uses have merged so now they are both capable of doing standard desktop work and pc's have forgotten their roots. Some industries are still using pc's running DOS or very early versions of Windoze as later ones can't do what they need to do. You only have to look at the selling points for Windows 11 to realise that the kids that are running things these days assume everyone uses a computer solely to play games, post on facebook/Instagram/TkTok and watch movies with the odd bit of internet surfing and word processing. Phones are much the same where the differences between an iPhone and an Android are down to slightly different icons.

If you set the baud rate to 9600 it should be fine. I think XP sets it much higher than that by default. No idea what my Win 2000 machine has it set at, all I know is it just works.

Thanks Gilbert. About to give it another go. Suspect I'm going to get a Win 10 Tower soon. I'm told PCs have become ever more Mac-like over the years, hence the transition should be easier.

The main thing that confuses me if I have to use a Mac (a mate uses a Mac laptop) is the lack of two buttons on a mouse. You'll probably find having an extra button confuses you.....

Yup. Struggling with just that now, and XP seems clunky. You can't just click on Control panels and find eveything there. 'Properties' navigation nonsense, took me 10 mins to find Device manager with your instructios. Plus, the fact that I have to know how do any of it anyway. Grumble, grumble.

But... it works. Don't know why it failed before, or care. Running XP on a tired Dell, via a proper, proper Serial RS232 from CCY. Now to get hold of some of your actual AEB Leonardo Boxes for spares. Using Win10 and CCY USB only Bigas & OMVL would fly. Could never get AEB Leonardo to mount. Who knows why?