Welcome to another season of serial communication issues. Our favorite topic.

We recommend buying a dual serial card from Socket Communications to add two serial ports to your notebook.

http://www.mobileplanet.com/product.asp?dept%5Fid=3210&pf%5Fid=MP540100&listing=1

We personally dislike USB> Serial adapters and will not use them for our jobs.

Spend the money ($200) and buy a decent product.

Remember that if you can't "see" the serial ports in Windows Device Manager, you will never get any communications to work.

Download the latest drivers for your operating system from the manufacturers website even if the card is new in a box.

FOLLOW ALL DIRECTIONS TO THE LETTER!!!!! DO NOT PLUG ANY CARD IN UNTIL PROMPTED BY THE SOFTWARE!!!

You're dealing with a person from the mechanical age. So you have to be very basic. We have a new Alge Timy and a new Dell Laptop. The PC cord that came with the Timy has a female type end that goes into the laptop. The laptop has two usb ports and a female type port with different number of holes than the cord. In simple terms what do I need to make this work. Our first Nastar race is 12/26. We have a Best Buy store nearby

The multipin connector on your laptop is designed to connect a remote monitor and is not useful for this application. It is useful to provide an announcer with a seperate screen that they can use to view times.

I checked Dell's website. Every one of their machines has a PC card slot. They use this for the addition of an optional wireless (WiFi) card. You can use this for installing the Socket PC card to serial adapter. Again, Check the websites for updated drivers for W2000, XP home, or XP pro.

Once you have installed the PC > serial adapter you will have the Male DB 9 connector you need to attach the TIMY data cable.

Staples is selling a decent USB to Serial adapter for $29.99

Belkin F5U109
Staples SKU 517161

http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Staple...d=-1&productId=90680