@misty there’s a few different chipsets but generally yes, they’ll all just show up as a serial port. Be aware of fake FTDI chips if you’re on Windows as the official driver will refuse to use them last I heard.

@misty Are you interfacing with something that requires more of the RS232 standard than the typical DB9 connector carries?

I've never encountered stuff that wouldn't work with the signals on a DB9 RS-232. If you have something like that, I'd be surprised if it worked with a USB adapter at all.

And if it doesn't need the DB25, DB9 + adapter (or correctly-ended cable) should be fine.

You def. want an adapter based on the FTDI USB-RS232 IC. The others are inferior.

@misty Besides the compatibility concerns already present between DB25 RS232 devices, you mean?

@misty @mcc No, yes. It boils down to RS232 completeness.
( I hope you don’t need all the ugly details, which are no longer resident in my head…)

@misty on the 25pin side of things: almost certainly not. Most of those 25 pins never really got used. Caveat for speciality devices, but anything you likely have laying around: almost certainly won't matter.

As for being compatible, there's only a handful of USB to rs232 chipsets around. At least on Linux I've never ran into one that didn't just work. I'm assuming that windows also just comes with those drivers at this point.

No idea about macOS, but I similarly can't imagine problems.

@misty one of those pins is a "ring indicator" for modems for instance, that one is not present on the db9 connector.

It's also possible to have a whole extra channel on the 25pin, like a whole extra pair or Rx/tx lines with all of the other signals. I don't know if any PC ever actually implemented those though.

@misty oh, one more thing, there *are* db9 to db25 converters that also helpfully turn the cable into a null modem.

These are rare but they do exist and if you get one you might spend a lot of time and effort on buying new USB serial cables for no good reason.

I will not be answering any questions about how I know this. 😐

@hp Hahaha, oh no…

@misty I think I still have it. It has a fancy label printed sticker on it that says ☠️CURSED☠️ now. 😄

@ieure Thank you! Checking the list of pins here, these all seem to line up fine with pins that are in the DB9 connector, so I suspect I'll be okay then.

Edit: checking the manual, it seems I misremembered identifying it as a DB25 port? The manual seems to suggest it's 15-pin

ALT

@misty Oh, that's odd. Maybe it was a more compact RS-232 connector prior to the DB9 getting adopted widely?

If it is DB15, you might need to build an adapter.

@ieure I wonder! I could see it. Looks like the manual references an official adapter, but I've also found a Pioneer service bulletin with information on the wiring, so I can use that as a reference.

@misty Yeah, they're fairly easy to make, if you're comfortable with a soldering iron.

Happy to help if you could use some guidance with any of that.

@jon Oh, that's a good note, thanks! I'll have to see if I can make sure to find an official one.