GearmoUSB to RS232 Serial Cable 3ft – Plug & Play Adapter with FTDI Chip for Legacy Devices

Works GREAT with my Macbook Pro with OSX Yosemite. The trick is the FTDI chip inside the cable. Don't forget to DOWNLOAD and install the Mac driver, or you'll think it doesn't work.NOTE:This product (and most like it) has the wrong gender if you're trying to control a Radio or Ham Transciever. Notice most people who buy this also buy the "mini DB9 Female to Female Gender changer? Dummy me... I DIDN't notice and had to make a special run to pick one up locally!The two are sold together if you look at the bottom of the screen. Must be a popular combo for some reason... ;o)

These are light years easier to deal with than the typical (fake) Prolific chipset units. This particular one is especially nice. There's no clunky box at all- the guts are hiding in the USB plug. So it looks like a straight USB to 9-pin D.FTDI chip support pops up like magic in every Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux I've had a chance to use with it.Thank god there's an alternative to the terrible Prolifics. Their drivers are awful and apparently most of the chips on the market now are cheap semi-functional counterfeits. I can't remember the last time it wasn't a huge hassle getting a PL2303 to work right.If you're using one of these, you're likely sitting on the floor of a colo somewhere desperately trying to fix something important. Do you have time to screw around with your adapter first? I don't.

If you deal with legacy gear, commonly the case with amateur radio and industrial devices, this is a no-nonsense solution that works.I have some of the knock-off Prolific clones that *can* work with a lot of juggling, but OS updates and portability across PCs is a crapshoot.This is the real deal and will work. My only suggestion would be to include a F/F DB9 gender changer, as many pieces of hardware like police scanners have a male port on the rear panel.

I used it to connect to Krell KCT preamplifier, it works without any issue.One has to remember the USB port used and the serial port number for subsequent connections. Changing the USB port changes the serial port. I would have given it 5 stars if the cable was longer.

It won't communicate with a Shure DFR11EQ but the Radio Shack Gigawave USB Serial cable I borrowed from work will. If you go to SerialStuff's website there is more info on the GM-FTDI-36 "TX/RX and GND this is all this cable provides using the FTDI Chip" They don't put that in Amazon's description. So if you need more of the rs232 serial protocol ie DCD RXD TXD DTR GND DSR RTS CTS RI you're out of luck. I did loop test it with Hyper Terminal so yeah it does transmit and receive data.

It was a bit difficult to get the drivers installed on my windows 7 machine, but it did finally work. I don't think the drivers that came with the cable were current. The instructions were out of date.

This was the perfect cable. I could not get it locally and the catalog had just enough information for me to select the correct one.

Before buying this I tried a cheaper alternative. Now, I know. This one works as expected. I use it as a serial console cable on MacOS Mavericks and I didn't even had to install any drivers. I plugged it in a usb port and it was recognized and ready to use. Highly recommend it. Period!