Proprietary cables are expensive. With a good soldering job some serious money can be saved. So, what are you waiting for? Make your own USB or serial cable. Or make a real 9-pins RS232

Pin layout IPaq 38xx, 39xx, 22xx, 54xx and 55xx connector
First thing to do is to find the right connector for your IPaq. For Dutch people checkout http://www.mooiespullen.tk.





Pin layout 9-pins RS232 port
A normal serial (RS232) port on a computer has the following pin layout. The connectors are called DSUB9 or DB9.





USB cable
An USB cable can be used to synchronize your IPaq with your computer. Note that USB is not supported in WindowsNT and in Windows95 before the OSR 2 release.



Serial cable
To synchronize with WindowsNT or Windows95 (< OSR2) machines a serial cable is needed. This cable can also be used in combination of a null-modem adapter (which swaps de TX and RX signals) to connect other serial devices. For example: a digital camera for use with Snappixx (see article Snappixx v0.54 - Remote control for Nikon Coolpix cameras) or to connect a serial GPS mouse with standard 9 pins connector).



RS232 port
With this cable your IPaq device will have a RS232 port like on your normal PC. Without null-modem adapter you can connect other serial devices like a digital camera for use with Snappixx (see article Snappixx v0.54 - Remote control for Nikon Coolpix cameras) or to connect a serial GPS mouse with standard 9 pins connector) as written above.

An example picture of my serial port cable can be found here.