When I was working on my ECE degree, I purchased a USB-to-Serial adapter to connect my iBook to everything from oscilloscopes to micro-controllers. Earlier this week I had to dig out my adapter, a Keyspan USA-19, to update my DSL router (a story for another day).

As it turns out, Keyspan was bought by Tripp Lite in 2008, but appears to continue making and supporting Keyspan’s USB-to-Serial adpaters. I couldn’t find drivers for the USA-19, but took the risk an used the driver for the USA-19HS (Mac OS X 10.6.x to 10.8.x). There isn’t anything fancy about the installer; just follow the prompts.

Once the driver is installed, plug in the adapter and check for it with:

% ls -1 /dev/tty.*

I had to restart before I saw what I was looking for (I’ve omitted the results that aren’t relevant):

% ls -1 /dev/tty.*
/dev/tty.KeySerial1
/dev/tty.USA192433P1.1

Once you identify the USB-to-Serial adapter, in this case, USA192433P1.1, you can connect using tip(1)/cu(1) or screen(1). I used tip on my iBook, but don’t have it installed on my iMac.

% screen /dev/tty.USA.192433P1.1

Check the screen manpage for details about setting baud rate and other options.

I naively thought I could copy the iWork folder from my “/Applications/iWork ’09/” folder from my iMac to my MacBook Air. But, when I try to run an iWork application, I receive an error indicating that it’s “corrupt”.

A quick search later, and I was trying to copy additional files from “/Library/Application Support/” and “/Library/Preferences/”. Finally, I dug out the original iWork ’09 installation DVD that came with my iMac.

My MacBook Air doesn’t have a DVD drive, so I had to setup DVD sharing between my iMac and Air. On my iMac, I opened System Preferences, clicked Sharing under Internet & Wireless, and enabled “DVD or CD Sharing”. I checked the box “Ask me before allowing others to use my DVD drive” as a precaution.

After inserting the DVD into my iMac, I opened a new Finder window and clicked “Remote Disc” under Devices in the window’s sidebar, double-clicked the icon for my iMac, and clicked the “Ask to use…” button. (See “Use another computer’s DVD or CD drive” in Help Center for details. The “Ask to use…” button is a consequence of checking “Ask me before allowing other to use my DVD drive” on the iMac.) A dialog appears on my iMac indicating that my user on my MacBook Air would like to use my DVD drive; I clicked Accept, and the disc opens on my MacBook Air.

Initially, the installer failed because there was a newer version of iWork on my MacBook Air (the version I tried to copy earlier). I had to remove the following:

sudo rm -rf "/Applications/iWork '09/"
sudo rm -rf "/Library/Application Support/iWork '09/"
sudo rm -rf "/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWork09.Installer.plist"
sudo rm -rf "/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iWork09.plist"

After removing the above, I was able to successfully run the installer. After installation, I ran Software Update to upgrade iWork to the latest version.