On 16/5/23 11:02, Archie Miller wrote:
My question dad been on the comm ports on the Dell XPS 13. After being demeaned, I contacted Dell Tech support.
Dell Tech Support probably think a serial port is where sailor's drop anchor for breakfast.
The challenge we have is the concept of a "COM port" today is abstracted. You might have a cable with a USB serial IC that implements a UART serial port with some purpose-specific connector and pin-out, or you might have a plain USB cable that plugs into a port on a device that embeds said IC.
CHIRP can't really help this because radio programming interfaces can take many wide and varied forms, from physical serial ports (yes, you can buy industrial laptops that have RS-232 serial ports as well as PCIe RS-232 serial cards for desktops in 2023) and generic USB serial dongles combined with a homebrew cable; purpose-made radio programming cables, and built-in USB interfaces on radios. They all look the same to CHIRP.
The operating system will see this when you plug it in, assign an identifier (on Linux it'll be something like /dev/ttyUSB${n} or /dev/ttyACM${n}; on Windows it'll be COM${n}:, MacOS X is /dev/tty.usbserial${something}).
Then the fun is working out what device identifier got assigned to your widget. My only thought is to watch the system when you plug it in:
- on Windows NT-based systems (Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7 …) → look for the Device Manager. In years gone by, you could access this by right-clicking on "My Computer" and selecting "Manage" - on Linux and some Unix variants (maybe Apple too) → run `dmesg`after you plug it in, and look for messages that pertain to your new USB device. OR watch for a new node appearing in `/dev`.
I can't comment really on Windows 10 and newer, I don't use that stuff, but I am told behind the "new look UI" it is similar to 7 and earlier.