Quietly functional

At my job, I am outnumbered. Three of my co-workers (two of whom are management) are diehard Novell people. (My boss openly refers to herself as a Novell bigot.) One other fellow and I tend to split up everything that doesn't have a big red N on it. My boss wanted to expand the skillset we offer, and so I was selected to become "the Cisco guy."

While I freely admit to being a mere Cisco Padawan, I did notice one thing right off the bat. Cisco routers and switches are administered through a serial port connection. My laptop, like many laptops produced recently, does not have a serial port. This presented a problem.

I knew there was a solution; I'd seen another tech who had one. At the local CompUSA, I discovered two choices: the Keyspan USA-19HS USB to Serial adapter, and another one that advertised itself as a 'portable adapter' and cost ten dollars more. I believe it was by Belkin. However, the only difference seemed to be that the Keyspan included a detachable USB cable and the 'portable' one looked to be permanently attached. This didn't seem to be worth $10 extra; I'd rather have the detachable one, so that if the need ever arose I could press it into service.

For a mere $40 the Keyspan was mine. I've seen lower prices for it online, as low as $31. Online purchases mean shipping and handling, though, so I figured it was probably going to be equivalent.

Most people who need a USB-to-serial adapter are people in my position: people who want to talk to Cisco routers from a laptop that doesn't have a serial port. Serial ports themselves have long since given way to USB or Firewire ports. When was the last time you saw a serial-connected modem still in service? (Sitting in a box or in the basement doesn't count.) The Keyspan tends to reflect this: it's a tool. The people at Keyspan seem to have concentrated on providing a tool that takes little time to set up and works the way it should, without a lot of flash or glitz.

Another epinion on this item says that it doesn't work with Linux. That may be. Installation under Windows, however, is about as smooth as you could ask for. There is a driver CD included with the Keyspan. Putting it in the drive brings up a menu, the first choice of which is 'Install Software'. There are the usual suspects: Register Your Product, Browse the CD (the user manual is on the CD in .html and .pdf format), and a few others. The meat and potatoes, though, is installing the driver.

The install screen is nicely put together. If they splurged on glitz, here's where they did it. Selecting each option causes a sort of 'slurp' sound when you click on it. Installing the software kicks off a standard Windows Installer screen, and in under a minute, the software was installed and I was being nagged to register.

Installed with the driver is a utility called the Keyspan Serial Assistant. This is a straightforward and to-the-point bit of software: it shows the adapter status, its properties, the COM port it's decided to be, and some diagnostics. The Keyspan will pick the next available number for its COM port. On my laptop, it was COM4; on my desktop it was COM3. (My desktop doesn't have a modem.)

I didn't need to use the assistant, though. At work today I had to check the configuration on a Cisco PIX firewall. So out came the Keyspan. I plugged it in, and Windows took only a moment to recognize it and install the driver. Then I plugged into the firewall and tried both Hyperterminal and Tera Term Pro. Both of them accepted COM4 (the Keyspan's chosen COM port) with nary a problem. From then on, I was off and running.

And therein lies the elegant thing about the Keyspan: I didn't think about it. I didn't HAVE to think about it. I didn't have to configure it or call tech support. It just worked. There's something admirable in quiet functionality, especially when I'm trying to learn things that want a lot more configuration, like, say, the routers that the Keyspan is actually talking to!

The housing itself is reasonably rugged. It's a translucent black housing with a male DB-9 connector on one end and a USB connection (B) on the other. I've only had this one a few days, but it doesn't seem to be fragile.

If you need to talk to Cisco routers, this is a worthwhile tool to have in your bag.

Tech specs for the Keyspan USA-19HS:

Form Factor: External
Data Link Protocol: RS-232
Data Transfer Rate: 230 Kbps
Weight: 2 oz
Compatible OS: Linux, Microsoft Windows CE 3.0, Apple MacOS 8.6 or later, Microsoft Pocket PC, Apple MacOS X 10.1.3 or later, Microsoft Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
Ports: 1 X RS-232 Serial Male DB9, 1 X USB port type A