Thanks guys, I'll check that thread further. Yeah, basically, I'm trying to develop a program that will let me control the 990 from my PC. The only way that i know of to control the 990 is thorough the serial port, and I have the document that defines the protocol required for the 990.

Since our software doesn't seem to be doing anything, I thought I'd try the firmware upgrade to see if I can get anywhere with that. As you guys know, the Outlaw download tool isn't exactly the most robust tool in the world. I made roughly 20 attempts this morning with two cables, and had no luck. However, I wouldn't necessarily say that 20 failures means that it will never work; I had many, many failures when trying to download the firmware using the USB interface, and it finally worked.

So, yeah, the firmware download is just a test to see if the interface works.

The reason I don't use a regular old com port is that my PC doesn't have one. Neither do either of my laptops. I have a PC in the basement that probably has a com port, so I can drag it up and see what happens.

I believe that the RS232 protocol runs on +/-12V and the USB to serial thing is going to translate that to TTL at +/-5V. So that may be a problem. OTOH, there are lots of devices that are able to run using the USB to serial cables and that are tolerant of the voltage difference.

I also posted at AVS, so we'll see if anything comes up there. I'm also looking for a known working tool that can control the 990 -- something that someone else developed and tested. I don't necessarily want to get the source, but I could use it for verification purposes. My friend said he saw some stuff where people had done that, but I didn't find much on Google. I'll keep looking, but if someone's already done it, lemme know!

Anyway, that's it -- just trying to verify where the problem lies with my current lack of communication, and then develop a tool that will control the 990 (among other things, hopefully).

Thanks.