> On Jan 18, 2026, at 9:51 AM, Erik van der Tier <[email protected]> 
> wrote:
> 
> This time I though, I’d get a simpler setup with only one usb-c to serial and 
> a null modem cable

Practically any DTE-DTE cabling ought to work fine. A lot of folks around here 
suggest sticking with a USB/RS-232 bridge with an FTDI chip but I've never gone 
out of my way to get one. I use one of the basic StarTech ones with null wiring 
built in. Then it's DB9 to DB25 and I'm good to go.

Something to keep in mind on macOS in particular is that the /dev/cu.* device 
is dynamically created and doesn't consistently come up with the same name. 
More than once I've had to fish around in /dev to find what it decided to call 
the serial bridge today. Once that's squared away I can bring up a getty or 
fire up dl2/LaddieAlpha with no problem.

John's note about DSR/DTR is worth paying attention to. I've never had to 
concern myself with it using either of my RS-232 bridges but not all cabling 
setups take care of this for you.

It looks like StarTech does business in NL so you might have good luck picking 
up something from them. They're not cheap but StarTech makes great stuff as a 
whole. I think it's the ICUSB232PROC. It's a Prolific chip rather than FTDI but 
those have never given me a problem; my guess is that the folks who struggle 
with them are Windows users and that the drivers are bunk there.

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