Communications Support Forums

I avoid the usb to serial. Everyone says not to and it can be risky on expensive equipment. Alternatively I could get the usb oem /\/\ cables but there pretty pricey. My desktop is old has issues and it's days seen better. My modern laptop is a Dell inspiron. It only has usb. I checked with Dell on the pcmcia adaptor card slot to serial port. They no longer have it but I ran into plenty of third party vendors they reccomended with same specs. So for programming xts and xtl equipment has anyone ever used the pcmcia to db9 serial comport before and had successful use with it programming xts equipment? I decided to look into it since it would be the closest thing on that laptop to a main board serial port. It's also cheaper compared to the 300 dollar /\/\ usb cables. Yes my serial cables are oem and I kick self way back when now for not going usb at time. Any thoughts and would anyone have reason to not even attempt? If all fails my next method would be out to find used oem usb xts xtl cables or end up going new oem. Thanks for any thoughts or input.