I learnt something about serial connections the other day.
I want to make it so my TV automatically turns on and off with my HTPC. Since almost no desktop GPU supports HDMI-CEC I needed to look for another solution. Turns out the TV has a fully documented serial interface which allows me to control it, so I bought an FTDI usb to serial adapter.
Unfortunately, both the TV and the adapter have male connectors (pins) so I bought a gender changer as well.
Turns out, serial is kind of a mix between USB and Ethernet. Most of the time, it was used to connect a PC to a modem. But in my case the TV counts as a second PC. And if you want to connect a PC to another PC via serial, then you need a special crossed over "null modem" cable. So yeah, I ordered one now.
