Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Of Wacom tablets, terminals, serial ports, and adapters

145 views
Skip to first unread message

DaveC

unread,
Apr 25, 2010, 3:08:22 AM4/25/10
to
I have a USB-to-serial adapter on one of the USB ports connected to a serial
port Wacom tablet. The Wacom is controlled via TabletMagic (opensource
project) preference pane. The pane initiates a daemon when required (the user
can enable & disable the daemon from within the pane).

All was well until I tried installing a Wacom driver (there are no modern
drivers for serial port tablets, but where's the fun in not experimenting?).

Once I determined that the Wacom s/w didn't work I uninstalled everything I
could find (a few files in Extensions and Application Support folders) that
had names related to Wacom or Tablet. (There is nothing other than the pref
pane associated with TabletMagic so there is no danger of getting too
delete-happy...)

The tablet now doesn't work as it used to -- sometimes it is not recognized
by the pref pane, sometimes it is but no data transfer takes place.

I plugged a loop-back adapter to the USB-serial adapter and launched
QuickTerm. (QT settings: 9600, 8/1/none & no handshaking.) The resulting text
on the screen is good from between 160-250 characters. Then lock-up. Or
outright crash.

Any suggestion as to my next step would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dave

Mac Intel Mini 1.83 GHz / 2 GB / 230 GB
OS X 10.5.8
TabletMagic 2.0b17d2
Prolific-based PL2303 USB-serial adapter
Source Forge PL2303 drivers 0.3.1


DaveC

unread,
Apr 25, 2010, 3:25:57 AM4/25/10
to
I have 2 of the USB-serial adapters. Swapping the adapters doesn't change the
symptoms.

Thanks,
Dave

DaveC

unread,
Apr 25, 2010, 10:53:56 AM4/25/10
to
Permissions repair and PRAM reset, no joy.

Dave

John McWilliams

unread,
Apr 25, 2010, 11:28:58 AM4/25/10
to
DaveC wrote:
> Permissions repair and PRAM reset, no joy.

Try another USB port? Spit on the connectors? Complete backup restore?
Maybe not worth it......

Anything serial port is ancient, and Wacoms aren't that expensive unless
you're into the commercial sized ones.

--
john mcwilliams

Jolly Roger

unread,
Apr 25, 2010, 12:39:29 PM4/25/10
to
In article
<0001HW.C7F93876...@news.eternal-september.org>,
DaveC <inv...@invalid.net> wrote:

> I have a USB-to-serial adapter

My condolences. The day I threw mine into the box in the closet was a
good day for me.

--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.

JR

DaveC

unread,
Apr 26, 2010, 10:23:15 AM4/26/10
to
>> I have a USB-to-serial adapter

> My condolences. The day I threw mine into the box in the closet was a
> good day for me.

Problem solved.

The solution proved to be much simpler than I thought: the Wacom (or the
USB-serial adapter) doesn't like being plugged into a USB hub. Once plugged
into one of the Mac Mini's ports, all is good.

You might drag out that adapter from the closet. The drivers from Source
Forge really are light years better than the ones by the chip manufacturer:

<http://sourceforge.net/projects/osx-pl2303/>

Thanks to all,
Dave

Jolly Roger

unread,
Apr 26, 2010, 2:19:48 PM4/26/10
to
In article
<0001HW.C7FAEFE3...@news.eternal-september.org>,
DaveC <inv...@invalid.net> wrote:

Oh I've rid myself of any serial devices that required a USB-to-Serial
adapter long ago.

If I ever find the time, there is actually one case where I'd like to
use my USB-to-Serial adapter though. I work for an embedded chip
manufacturer, and I'd like to see if I can get minicom on Mac OS X (or
similar) to communicate through my Keyspan USB-to-Serial adapter with a
development board running embedded Linux. If I could do that I'd no
longer need a separate Linux box to do dev work on it. : ) At first
glance, it appears osx-pl2303 doesn't support Keyspan adapters. Luckily
the Keyspan drivers appear to work in 10.5, and probably in 10.6. So I
may be able to get by with them.

DaveC

unread,
Apr 26, 2010, 11:30:58 PM4/26/10
to
> If I ever find the time, there is actually one case where I'd like to
> use my USB-to-Serial adapter though. I work for an embedded chip
> manufacturer, and I'd like to see if I can get minicom on Mac OS X (or
> similar) to communicate through my Keyspan USB-to-Serial adapter with a
> development board running embedded Linux. If I could do that I'd no
> longer need a separate Linux box to do dev work on it. : ) At first
> glance, it appears osx-pl2303 doesn't support Keyspan adapters. Luckily
> the Keyspan drivers appear to work in 10.5, and probably in 10.6. So I
> may be able to get by with them.

The Keyspan has it's own drivers that -- according to Google ;-) -- seem to
do just fine.

Re. a comm utility, I found that CoolTerm does the best of the ones I've
tried. Available at all the usual places.

Dave

Jolly Roger

unread,
Apr 27, 2010, 10:30:20 AM4/27/10
to
In article
<0001HW.C7FBA882...@news.eternal-september.org>,
DaveC <inv...@invalid.net> wrote:

I'm partial to minicom <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minicom> just
because it's what I use in Linux, but also because it, being a
command-line program, can be used remotely easily.

I think you can also use the built-in 'screen' command to connect to any
port. Though I'm not sure how you would control baud rate etc.

I'll check out CoolTerm sometime. I was an avid ZTerm user back in the
day, so I'd probably be more inclined to use it if I wanted a GUI-based
communications program!

0 new messages