Hi all.
Trying to chase down a Laptop with at least the following.
i5 or higher,
8gb or higher
Win 7 or 10 pro
Serial Port
Probably 13inch or Bigger screen.
Trying to keep price around the $1000 mark.
Not having much luck with this. See a few that mention, serial ports as optional but no where to select that option.
I know there is usb -> serial convertors out there but with past experiences they do not always work as intended.
Thanks in advance.
Needs somewhere to transfer his weet-bix
To program switches etc, just know that the convertors are not always reliable.
Probably should be looking for a time machine first.
Not many these days, the occasional workstation notebook has it. Tried Lenovo?
Good luck in finding a laptop with inbuilt old and new tech. It is a niche field so you might have to get it custom made if you really want it.
If you want a good usb to RS232 converter, these are the best I've found. Definitely better than the ones off ebay where you have to install some no-name driver (and don't work on USB 3.0 ports):
https://www.adafruit.com/products/18 ($15 USD + $17 USD shipping - :( )
http://www.digikey.com.au/product-search/en?mpart=18&v=1528 digikey
Unfortunately they are hard to get in Australia, I purchased mine off Digikey (which isn't really worth it unless you're ordering other stuff as well).
Cheers, yeah one of the things that sucks about living in Aus.
I've been using a Belkin USB->COM converter and it's been fine.
Some talk of Fujutsu or Panasonic Toughbooks still having Serial as Native, but not for $1000, more like $2143 for the Toughbook 53.
http://business.panasonic.com/toughbook/semi-rugged-laptop-t…
http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/87000-35-laptops-serial-port
Yeah I have seen the Toughbook and Dell rugged ones have it, price shoots through the roof thou :)
If you don't mind second hand, then some of the older Dell Latitude laptops have serial ports. You should be able to get an i5 with Win7 Pro.
Depending on your application, sometimes the cheaper USB converters may not work as serial runs on +-12V and usb can only do 0V to 5V. The more expensive ones has an external power supply that shifts the bits to +-12V. I ran into this issue once. At first I thought it was my code and wasted 2 days trying to debug it. But eventually, I tried it on an old Pentium 4 machine that I had lying around and it had a proper serial port, worked the first time. :)
What for?