I logged in to basically ask this question. My Laptop got dropped about 60 feet off a rig into the gulf yesterday, I am having trouble finding a new one that has a serial port. Does anyone have any suggestions for laptops that have serial ports? I cant really seem to find one. Before you say just use a serial converter, I have NOT had good luck with those at all.
I work with Allen Bradly, SquareD, Onron, Texas Instruments, Omni, GE Fanuc, Siemens, Schneider, SCADA Pack, Murphy, Altronics, ABB, Micro Data, Digital Controls, Woodward Governors, DSE generators, ProFace, GE QuickPanels, and others.
Some of the older PLC's like the SquareD Sy/Max and TI 505's that require XP and some of the older ProFace and GE HMI's use QuickDesigner programs that run in Win2000.
I have not had luck at all getting some of the older software to communicate over USB converters especially running in VM's. I have had better luck using a PCI 232 port.
What is the recommendation for a laptop for this situation?