Compatibility of serial adapters

[Paul Fox]

peter wrote:
 > Seems that an adapter such as http://www.ebay.ca/itm/381346598663 ,
 > similar to the first generation adapter, might work.  The concluding
 > sentence in
 > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Serial_adapters#First_generation_serial_adapter
 > is "This only works on the XO-1."  What prevents it from working on an
 > XO-1.5?  Can anyone elaborate on this compatibility topic?

i believe it's because the later adapters are USB adapters, and are
powered from the USB side.  the old XO-1 adapter gets power from
the laptop -- that power isn't available from later models.  (read
the descriptions of "Pin 1" in the Electrical Details section of
the page you linked to.

paul
=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf at laptop.org