Hello, Perl gurus!

I've been trying to figure this out for the past week or so, and not having much luck. I'm hoping that someone here will have some ideas, or even better, experience with my problem.

I've got an old (compiled, no source code) application that requires a GPS connection on a serial port. Of course, none of our field laptops have anything like that - it's all USB these days. What I need is some kind of a "bridge" daemon that will read the NMEA-0183 sentences from the USB port and write them to the serial port.

I've read 'perldoc -q serial', including Jamie Zawinski's solution... and I see that even he had to struggle with all the craziness in dealing with these things. I've messed around, half-heartedly - since I don't really understand what I'm doing - with IPC::Open2, and got nowhere. Not even close to anywhere, in fact - couldn't read anything at all. I've searched the web until the engine in my browser ran out of oil and started making a rattling noise, and had no luck at all.

We're running Ubuntu, and I know that these external USB dongles work just fine - 'gpsdrive' has no problem seeing them. The only problem is this legacy app - and I'm the guy who's been "delegated" to deal with the issue.

I'd really appreciate whatever wisdom and advice you can spare.

In reply to USB to serial "coupler"? by Anonymous Monk

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