> My Dell d620 came with a real serial port, on the laptop itself even!
> I'm not sure if the current one d630 has it too. I think the d820 had
> it as well.
>

Yup, the d820 I'm using now has a serial port. You do have to be
careful though, most laptop serial ports are 0-5V not -9V to +9V that
a "real" serial port is. Laptops usually won't run the JDM style PIC
programmer for example. But they will talk to most serial devices like
routers and switches, so it may not matter on your application.
However, your new laptop, even if you get an onboard serial port, may
not act at all like the old one did.

My old dell c840 (i think, maybe c800) had a large docking station
that took PCI cards. I was able to put a "real" serial card into that.
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