Hi Allen,

Will your new laptop have Vista 32-bit, Vista 64-bit, Win 7 32-bit, or Win 7 64-bit? With the 32-bit varieties you won't have much trouble, if any. The 64-bit versions present some problems but I haven't encountered any real serious compatibility issues yet.

TheSky6, CCDSoft v5, MaxImDL v5, and ImagesPlus v3.75+ all work fine with Vista and Win 7 64-bit. For CCDSoft, you'll need to make sure you get the 64-bit driver checker. But with your parallel camera, that could present a different issue all together. The Quatech SPP-100 works great under Win XP but I don't know if there are 64-bit drivers AND most new laptops don't come with PCMCIA ports anymore. That one will take a bit more research. You might want to see if SBIG has any recommendations.

The serial-to-USB situation is no problem (for the mount, focusers, etc.). Get some adapters from FTDI. They work great with the 64-bit OSes and they maintain their serial port assignments when you plug them into a different USB port. You can plug a few into a USB hub then just have 1 cable going to the laptop.

Hope that helps.

Best,
Danny


--- In ap-gto@..., "gilchriswa" <gilchris@> wrote:

I'm almost certain this question has been asked before, and I hate to bother the group with this, but I could not find the right messages with a brief search. I will need to replace my old laptop computer soon, and none of the new ones has a serial or parallel port. They also run Vista instead of the old XP-Pro I've been using. I assume that there are port expanders or such that plug into a USB port and provide an RS-232 serial port for connecting to my AP-1200 mount. Does anyone have any experience or recommendations relating to these devices? Do any of them have parallel ports? I still use an old parallel port ST-7 as an autoguider. Is Windows Vista compatible with The Sky-6 and CCDSoft software I am currently using, or will I need to get an update on those programs? Thanks for any help that anyone can provide.

Allen Gilchrist