PL2303 & gui serial status display for /dev/ttyUSB(x)?

[Bob Chiodini]

Gene,

I tried a pl2303 serial to USB one and had problems. It was a radio 
shack branded device.

Using FC4 at the time it looked like only every other character was 
being received by the host. Data to the device was fine. Unfortunately, 
I never resolved the problem and opted for a four port Keyspan device. 
No problems connecting through it to the same serial device.

If the Garmin only has four wires, most likely the handshake is 
XON/XOFF, if any. Does the Garmin "talk" correctly via one of the "real" 
serial ports?

Bob...

Gene Heskett wrote:
> Greetings;
>
> Trying to get roadnav to talk to my elderly Garmin 12, and because I'm out 
> of serial ports, the garmin 4 pin to db9 connector cable is plugged into  
> the db9 end of a pl2303 serial to usb adaptor.  The pl2303 is recognized 
> and assigned to /dev/ttyUSB0 according to dmesg.
>
> I'm apparently getting zero data from the garmin and I suspect its the 
> lack at least the 7 wire protocol at the garmin side of the pl2303.  I 
> believe it may even be just a 2 wire & ground setup as the garmin 
> connector is only a round 4 pin, probably with little or no flow control 
> as the garmin apparently runs at 4800 baud only.
>
> But, I'd like to ask here on this list:  Has anyone ever made a pl2303 
> based adaptor actually work?
>
> The only other time I seriously tried to use this $40 gizmo was as an 
> interface translator with the rs-232 pack of a vintage coco on the other 
> end.  At that time I was able to type back and forth using terminal 
> programs on both, but a known good zmodem setup on the coco failed to 
> move more than about 10 bytes of a 10k file when I had minicom attempt 
> the transfer.  At the time I also suspected config/handshake problems and 
> eventually gave up, but now I think the pl2303 may be busted or 
> miss-configured, hence the request for a gui program to monitor 
> individual wire status at the db9 connector, but do it 
> using /dev/ttyUSB(x).
>
> Is this latter idea even possible?
>
> Thanks everybody.
>
>