[NTLK] uGreen serial adapter - connecting to MessagePad 2x00

[nicmalone at mac.com]

Hello folks

My uGreen serial adapter came today, ordered via the link on Pawel's blog to be sure it is the correct one (it looks identical). It shows up in Mac System Report as "Future Technologies International Ltd" with vendorID 0x0403, and its serial number reported here matches the serial drop-down connection option in NCX ("usbserial-AK08QM17") - but connection fails with the MessagePad 2000 telling me to check the cable. I've tried all the available serial speeds available in NCX and the Newton, including the default 38,400.

I'm using a standard DIN8 to DB9 adapter cable from eBay to connect the uGreen cable to the Newt's dongle. Is this the wrong cable? Does it need to be a cable with weird non-standard Apple wiring between the DIN8 and DB9 ends? Also, NCX has a completely blank side bar and blank main window, only the message to "establish a connection from the Newton first" is visible. Is this normal? Shoud there at least be some greyed out graphics (e.g. restore, install pkg, etc) in the main window? I'm using NCX 3.02 on MacOS Mojave.

Or am I missing something else (standing on my left leg with a bowl of poutine in my right hand)?

Nic