The Keyspan USA-19HS serial to USB adapter works fine as long as it is set up properly.
To do this, install the Keyspan driver, version 2.3 or later under Mac OS X. DO NOT install a driver under Windows.
The next step is to add a serial port to the Parallels Windows 2000 virtual machine configuration. To do this, start Parallels Desktop, select the Windows virtual machine from the list and click the Select button. On the Parallels Desktop menu bar, click Edit, select Virtual Machine from the drop down menu and click the Yes button on the drop down dialog box. The Configuration Editor window will be displayed.
Click the Add button in the Configuration Editor, select Serial Port from the Available Hardware list and click the Next button. Select 'Use a socket' and click the Next button. The following window shows the properties of the serial port. The default name of the serial port is /tmp/serial and this does not need to be be changed. Set the socket role to 'Server', check the 'Connect the Serial Port at startup' checkbox and click the Finish button to complete the setup of the serial port. Click the OK button to close the Configuration Editor and then quit the Parallels Desktop application.
One other software component that is required is a small utility called SerialClient. SerialClient is a free download from the
Eudyptes website and is used to connect and disconnect the Keyspan driver from Parallels. Download the SerialClient utility and install it under Mac OS X by dragging it to the Applications folder.
Start the SerialClient application and it will display a serial port configuration window. The Stream Path field will have the default name of the serial port in it and must be the same as the name given to the serial port when it was added to the Parallels virtual machine with the Configuration Editor. Set the Baud Rate to whatever you need and the Flow Control to Hardware (RTS/CTS).
In your ~/Documents folder, create a new folder named SerialClient. Click File on the SerialClient menu bar, save the serial port configuration in the ~/Documents/SerialClient folder and quit the SerialClient application.
Now, to use the USB to serial adapter, make the necessary hardware connections, start the Windows virtual machine and let it complete its initialization. Start the SerialClient application by double-clicking the saved configuration file, click the SerialClient Connect button and then start the application that uses the serial connection. Be sure that the application is using the COM port that the Keyspan adapter is connected to.
Click to expand...
