> I have two computers with USB ports. > I wish them to communicate as simply as mid-20th-century computers did.
What kind of "communicate" do you need there? The "way back machine" to simulate a "null modem" serial cable exists, as you've seen, but it's rarely the best solution for nowadays's needs, since nowadays connecting two computers is something completely normal, supported by a deluge of tools, but they all expect a "network" connection rather than a serial cable. In most cases those two computers also have ethernet or wifi "ports" so you can connect them via such a network (which usually offers faster transmission than a serial cable, lets you seamlessly multiplex several connections, and lets you use the many tools working over the network to connect computers). In some cases one of the two computers's USB port is an "OTG" port, meaning that it can act either as "master" or not, in which case you can just use a regular USB cable (and usually you then configure the OTG side to pretend it's a network card, so it ends up looking to the software like you've connected the two machines via an ethernet cable. That's what I use between my BananaPi "router" and my office desktop). If none of that are options, you can resort to using an "ethernet dongle" on both sides and an ethernet cable between the two. All of those things will typically work "out of the box" on a vanilla Linux kernel (the usbnet drivers have been incorporated years ago). Oh, and in case those computers are somewhat old, they may also come with Firewire ports, and those (contrary to USB) don't have the "slave/master" distinction so you can connect your computers this way with a plain normal Firewire cable (and make it appear to the software, again, as some kind of ethernet-like connection). Stefan