Think this will work as a serial header/cable?

[Yablargo]

Its a paralell header (10-pin just like the serial header, believe one is a dead pin), connected to a paralell cable, to a paralell->serial adaptor.

my board came legacy-free and just has the pinheaders on the motherboard.

[dinki]

Should work if it's a straight through cable (ala not a null modem cable)

[pBS]

that's not a parallel>serial adapter, serial ports actually came with a large and small connector [25 and 9 pin] in the old days..
[parallel->serial requires circuitry]
that should work, but i believe the Zip cables aren't straight-thru [they are parallel cables,but somewhat proprietary] so that blue cable may not work..the rest are all serial cables so are fine..tho there were more than one pinout for those header cables so that may not work either if it's too old a cable..
[there was no standard in the early days of those header cables]
basically if the key pin doesn't match with pin 1's matched up then it's the wrong type..[pin 1 on cable is red stripe side,and 1 should be marked on board side]
if what you have doesn't work try a different 25 pin [the blue one] cable..

[Yablargo]

that's not a parallel>serial adapter, serial ports actually came with a large and small connector [25 and 9 pin] in the old days..
[parallel->serial requires circuitry]
that should work, but i believe the Zip cables aren't straight-thru [they are parallel cables,but somewhat proprietary] so that blue cable may not work..the rest are all serial cables so are fine..tho there were more than one pinout for those header cables so that may not work either if it's too old a cable..
[there was no standard in the early days of those header cables]
basically if the key pin doesn't match with pin 1's matched up then it's the wrong type..[pin 1 on cable is red stripe side,and 1 should be marked on board side]
if what you have doesn't work try a different 25 pin [the blue one] cable..

I have a paralell printer cable I purchased a billion years ago that should be straight-thru, so Ill check into that. Thanks for the info I think the header actually came from a newer asus Nforce2 board (cant be certain, but I know that those boards actually had them included, and the adaptor was found with stuff from around the time of that MB purchase.. not my board, dont know the specifics!).

[stefan]

Curious, how are you going to use this with gbpvr?

[mobiusnz]

There are a few places this can go wrong - it will drive you insane! (Especially if you have no easy way to test it!). There are at least two alternate ways of wiring the pin assignments with these ports. See in the following image that its wired with the left 5 wires to the bottom row and the right 4 to the top



many are also wired with wire 1 to the first pin on the top row, wire 2 to the first on the bottom row and so on alternating up down. Then as people have already mentioned that ZIP drive cable probably isn't straight through - its almost certain to have a cross-over or two (murphy's law). Assuming the wiring on the D25 serial port is right for your motherboard all you need is a female 25 -> Male 9 adapter and flag the rest. Ideally find a local computer retailer whose been in the game and talk nicely and they'll probably find you a 9 pin serial header. I know if you came into my old workplace I would have found you one of each and probably not charged you for them as we had them lying around.

[Yablargo]

Curious, how are you going to use this with gbpvr?

To plug in the serial port on a digital cable box to control channel changes?

Failing that Ill go out and buy a USB->Serial port

[stefan]

Ah, I see. Just make sure your STB supports that behavior. Some do. Most don't.

[Yablargo]

Ah, I see. Just make sure your STB supports that behavior. Some do. Most don't.

Yeah, im gonna try it out on one of the other boxes in the house before I go get the new box for the pc. is the irblaster all too slow? We dropped alot of the premium channels and mostly just get hbo and the cheaper channels now (no max or starz I think..)

Might not be worth using if it is slowww responding with the irda blaster

[stefan]

I'm not sure, but I don't think you'll get that much faste response with a serial cable.