> no-one has RS232 on anything modern In my experience, this isn't true. Granted, it might be for Laptops, but even modern desktop/workstation hardware tends to have RS232 -- they just don't expose the physical connector on the backside.
I have yet to see an mainboard that wouldn't have a 9-pin header (usually labeled COM0 or COM1) were all you need is a cable like http://www.frontx.com/pro/p1022_030p2.gif to make the port accessible
