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USB Serial Adapters

macgreg

Well-known member
Hi All,

In my ongoing mission to get my Newton 2100 talking to my PowerBook G4 (running 10.4 no Classic), I purchased a second-hand Belkin USB Serial Adapter (F5U114-MAC). It is the one with two DIN-8 ports. Now it appears Belkin have 8.6 and 9.x drivers, does anyone know if they have OS X drivers?

Cheers [:)] ]'>

 

II2II

Well-known member
No idea. But if you go to the System Profiler and look for the USB device it should tell you what the chipset is (alas, a company like Belkin probably had the vendor and product ID written with their own data). Then you search for a third party drive.

At least that is how I managed to get drivers for my no-name unit.

 

macgreg

Well-known member
After some further investigation, it looks like it is only supported on OS X under Classic mode. Guess I will have to install a Classic environment...

 

iMac600

Well-known member
3rd party Newton Sync utilities have been made for Mac OS X. (if that's what you mean, gobabushka)

 

macgreg

Well-known member
I have considered Ethernet but I have never been able to get a Newton compatible PCMCIA ethernet card... Would be much easier though.

Cheers [:)] ]'>

 

Charlieman

Well-known member
I have considered Ethernet but I have never been able to get a Newton compatible PCMCIA ethernet card... Would be much easier though.
The 3Com 3C589 is as common as dirt and you should be able to get one on eBay for about £5. In fact all of the Newton-compatible ethernet NICs look pretty commonplace.

 

The Macster

Well-known member
It's infuriating how you never have all the bits you need to do something cool like getting a Newton online though - I found one of those 3com cards ages ago (it was in that dead ThinkPad that I got given), but the little dongle for turning the flat connection on it into a normal connection doesn't seem to work, and I also really need a Newt power adapter as the batteries I put in it died pretty quickly, and the backup battery in is dead too! > :( I'd probably never be able to work out how to get it online anyway, even if I had all the bits :(

 

macgreg

Well-known member
Bit of an update...

Just secured on eBay a working 3Com 3C589D PCMCIA Ethernet Adapter.

I already have one of these (with a busted up dongle) and this one comes with 2 working dongles so with any luck I will end up with 2 working setups.

According to this page these cards should work with my Newton 2100. Does anyone else have specific experience with this card on a Newton? Will it work on a 120 (OS 2.0) or am I being a tad optimistic?

Cheers [:)] ]'>

 

Blessed Cheesemaker

Well-known member
Hi All,
In my ongoing mission to get my Newton 2100 talking to my PowerBook G4 (running 10.4 no Classic), I purchased a second-hand Belkin USB Serial Adapter (F5U114-MAC). It is the one with two DIN-8 ports. Now it appears Belkin have 8.6 and 9.x drivers, does anyone know if they have OS X drivers?

Cheers [:)] ]'>
I can definitively tell you that the Belkin adapter does not have any OS X drivers...I shelled out the $$$ before OSX for one, and I was fairly upset when they never supported it. I later shelled out the bucks for a Keyspan adapter, and their support has been very good.

 

wgoodf

Well-known member
i have only just been thinking about such things..

so if these things need drivers, then any chance of getting one of these serial adapters to work on a ibook running linux is pretty much not going to happen then?

hmm.. shame..

 
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