You can find many examples of USB RS232 adaptors,
Indeed. But they don't work reliably (I've tried both FTDI and Prolific chipsets), especially with slower devices with which reliable flow control is essential.
I've never come across 15-pin RS232
Yup, that was a typo. I've corrected it now. Thanks. (I've been using a full-sized keyboard for a few days, and coming back to the compact keyboard on my laptop, my "2"-finger reaches the "1" key!)
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In other news I can see (an interesting message in the Pyra newsgroup) that
@hns has been doing some amazing work fixing an intermittent issue with the modem powering down.
Strictly speaking this overvoltage design flaw is a consistent issue that was intermittently observered, rather than an intermittent issue. What a _huge_ relief that it can be worked around in software! (A board revision and another year's wait would have been A Very Horrible Thing.)
One can't help feeling, though, that this mistake should have been discovered when the prototypes were being tested last summer. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here and the test procedures can be made more thorough/complete.