[SGVLUG] Need a decrepit laptop

Dustin Laurence dustin at laurences.net
Tue Oct 3 15:35:15 PDT 2006


On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 03:08:08PM -0700, Claude Felizardo wrote:
> On 10/3/06, Dustin Laurence <dustin at laurences.net> wrote:
> >OK, I finally bought that VW diesel.  Now I need to track down an old
> >laptop with a serial port to run the (MS-only argh) diagnostic software
> >on.  Anyone have one they want to get rid of cheap?  No laptop (almost)
> >is too obsolete to be worth considering--I don't want to like the laptop
> >enough to hesitate using it with greasy fingers. :-)
> >
> >Dustin
> 
> Which MS OS's are required?

Doesn't much matter.  '95 or newer.  No, that copy of 3.1 you've been
dying to use again won't work....

> ...Will the app work with a USB/serial port 
> adapter?

Under Windows, probably.  However, some people have gotten it to work
under Wine, so I definitely plan to try that.  However...under Linux you
have to use the serial port.  So very unlikely that way.

If it has to run That Other OS, it will, but I'd be happier if it ran a
Linux.  Plus there is an open-source scanning tool for generic OBD II
interfaces (i.e. not all the cool VW-specific stuff VAG-COM does) that I
want to try:

http://freediag.sourceforge.net/

I believe Freediag also only uses the serial port.  Another reason to
make sure it has a serial port and is reasonably Linux-compatible....

Dustin

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