Bluetooth Serial Ports / VMWare

As laptops with serial ports become harder to buy, has anyone tried using a Bluetooth or WiFi serial port adapter?

Siemens Step5 software seems to be the most challenging application to run as it only seems to work if you have a real 16450/16550 UART chip. This leads me to a second question Step5 runs on a VMware virtual machine no problem but does VMWare emulate the serial port or does it "Pass Throuth?

I have used a Moxa serial port server to communicate with Control Techniques drives sucessfully. The server is connected via ethernet and the driver emulates the serial ports. I haven't tried this with Siemens Step5 software but would be interested to know whether anyone else has tried it.

Nick

Your post indirectly tells that you must be using the RS232/TTY adapter.
I have no experience with a VM guest accessing the serial port on the VM host for an S5 connection. For other serial RS232 connections I have had success, but never tried RS232/TTY.
I have read reports that a virtual RS232 port (via ethernet) to a remote RS232 will not work with the RS232/TTY adapter.

I have had good success with USB and ethernet devices connecting the VM guest. Have you considered one of these ? :
http://www.deltalogic.de/content/view/53/77/lang,en/
http://www.deltalogic.de/content/view/102/76/lang,en/
http://www.deltalogic.de/content/view/52/76/lang,en/

You could try and contact Deltalogic and ask them about VMware support.

(I can't resist the urge to comment:
If you have some S5 PLCs controlling something important, then you should start immediately making plans for replacing the S5 for something up-to-date).

Jesper,

Thanks for your prompt response. Most applications work just fine with a USB to Serial adapter but Step5 doesn't - at least not directly I haven't actually tried it with VMWare. None of the "virual port" adapters I've tested so far have worked with S5 because it needs a real 16450/16550 UART chip.

JesperMP said:

(I can't resist the urge to comment:
If you have some S5 PLCs controlling something important, then you should start immediately making plans for replacing the S5 for something up-to-date).

Click to expand...

(I can't resist the urge to respond:
I wholeheartedly agree with you. We are system integrators so upgrading other peoples old S5 stuff is an increasing area of our business)

Best regards,

Nick

JesperMP said:

I have had good success with USB and ethernet devices connecting the VM guest. Have you considered one of these ? :
http://www.deltalogic.de/content/view/53/77/lang,en/
http://www.deltalogic.de/content/view/102/76/lang,en/
http://www.deltalogic.de/content/view/52/76/lang,en/

You could try and contact Deltalogic and ask them about VMware support.

Click to expand...

Jesper, Thanks for the links, these look like a viable alternative to a serial port, I think I've seen a similar product on the Helmholz web site too.

Nick