Serial ports are ubiquitous on modern systems. Other than some “legacy-free”
motherboards and systems, nearly all modern computers have one or two
serial ports, although one or both may exist only as a set of header
pins on the motherboard.
Nothing/Anything
Before you buy an add-on serial port card, make sure you really
need it. Embarrassingly often, we’ve popped the lid on a system,
intending to install a serial port, only to find that there was
already a perfectly good one unused. In our defense, those little DB9
connectors are easy to miss in the tangle of cables on the back panel,
and if the port is disabled in the BIOS, Windows doesn’t report it
as present.
So, first make sure you don’t already have what you need. If it
turns out that you do need to install one, think again. Serial ports
consume a lot of resources for the functionality they provide. You may
be better off installing an inexpensive A-B serial switch and sharing
one port between two devices, for example an external modem and a Palm
cradle.
If you absolutely need to add a serial port, buy one of the
inexpensive (~$20) serial port cards commonly sold by computer stores
and mass marketers. We’ve used many different ones, all of which
seem to work fine and none of which is noticeably better than any of
the others.
Belkin Gold Series cables
Nowadays, the only serial cable you are likely to need is a modem
cable, which is a standard off-the-shelf model. Belkin stocks a great
variety of standard serial cables in various lengths, connector types,
and pinouts. Although Belkin makes a less expensive line of cables,
their best grade is worth the few extra dollars it costs.
