Serial comms USB

[enonod]

I apologise for having been on this subject before, but my memory has failed me and I really need to restart and obtain all the facts in one post.
Can somebody clear me up please because while I have doubts I cannot give up and do something completely different. :BangHead:

1. I have a Acer n310 WM5 device with a USB charge cable and Bluetooth.
2. It also has a USB host cable.
3. The unwired pins of the 26 pin connector do contain a serial port (presumably TTL levels).
4. System Info does not list a COM port, so how does it get activated?

5. I do not want to try to wire up the serial if it can be avoided, it is difficult to find a blank plug and I cannot find a serial cable for the device and I will probably melt the adjacent wires on the existing USB cable.

6. When I use Bluetooth with GPS it sets up a VCP (pair?) no problem.
7. There does not appear to be a method in B4PPC to Tx/Rx through a USB, yet there must be lots of PPC that use it without serial.
8. If I am forced to wire the serial, is it likely that the driver is built into WM5 or do I have to find and install one?

I wish to know what solutions are available apart from 5 above.

If I can get answers to all the questions I can die in peace.

 

[mjcoon]

I have a Fujitsu-Siemens Loox N520.

I have a (massive!) serial-and-USB-slave cable for it. Also a power-and-USB-host, which I can use with a keyboard or memory stick.

I wanted a neat serial Rx/Tx connection, so wired one into a power-only plug that had a screwed-together case. It was not easy! The serial connection comes out to a piggy-back 2.5mm stereo socket attached with heat-shrink sleeving.

I found the pin-out on the web and of course checked the wiring.

I have also modified a cheap cradle which came with power and USB-slave to include the cradle audio output so that I do not have to use the 3.5mm audio connection for mp3 playing.

So this can be done, even with sexagenarian hand/eye skills!

Mike.

 

[enonod]

Thank you mjcoon. I take in what you say.
I have seen the power only plugs and asked the supplier if it is possible to wire the remainder of pins or have only the power ones been included (as so many plugs) and they do not know, they did not even know if there was a hole for a cable to go in under the power socket!

I will have to leave this open for some of the other questions but if the power only plug has all the pins I will go that route, but not unless I know how to activate the port and make it usable.

Do you know why it is so difficult to provide comms through USB?

[EDIT] I have entered the reason for this edit as stupidity!
I have just managed to find that a lot of these issues were solved before my amnesia and I have now found the old postings, so I apologise.