Serial Cable Linking

Serial cable linking is easy if you have the following:

• Two Windows computers, each with a link-capable version of TypeWell. Check by pulling down the Options or Link menu in TypeWell on each computer. If the menu has a Serial Link entry, it is link-capable.
• A 9-pin serial port on each computer. Many modern notebook computers don't have a serial port built-in. The most common solution is to get a USB-to-serial-port converter.
• The serial port enabled. On some newer computers, the serial port is disabled in the BIOS. Check this by going to Control Panel/System/Hardware/Device Manager, opening the Ports (COM & LPT) entry, and seeing if your COM1 or COM2 is enabled. If not, access the BIOS menu when the computer is booting up, to turn it on.
• An appropriate serial cable (in technical terms, a null-modem 9-pin female-to-female serial cable). We don't sell serial cables, but good quality ones at a good price are available from Cablesnmor or Amazon.

To activate Serial linking, just connect the cable between the two computers and turn on the "by Serial" entry in the Link menu on each computer. In the bottom right corner of the TypeWell screen, the readout should change from "Link Disabled" to "Searching" for a brief moment, and then will automatically change to "Linked on serial cable" when the computers detect each other. This is nearly instantaneous when the steps above have been followed.