Speaking serial out RJ-45 jack

[Nicholas Leippe]

On Fri Mar 27 2009 17:35:47 Richard Esplin wrote:
> I need to talk to a Cisco 2600. It has an RJ-45 jack on it, and it comes
> with an RJ-45 to D9 cable. My laptop does not have a D9 serial port.
>
> I know that I can buy a USB to serial dongle.
>
> However, in theory I can just tell my computer to speak serial out my
> ethernet port.

No, in theory and in practice, you can't. They are totally different 
electrical specifications.

> I understand that I can get software that lets me transmit serial over
> ethernet to another machine which will then send it out the serial port.
> That isn't exactly what I want.

I'm not sure of to what you're referring here, but like you said, it's not 
relevant.

> Any ideas?

You need an actual serial port. A USB serial port device will do it.