zroadster.net

just brought a cheap second hand laptop for my inpa and other diagnostic stuff, it has a serial port at the rear, I seem to recall that there was some sort of advantage in using the serial port but cant remember what advantage it was, anyone remember?

It just works more easily. INPA is set designed for a serial port, so works with it natively.

A proper serial port is required for early cars, which use ADS. The later cars use OBD-II signals and can be connected to using USB readers (this is true even on cars without an OBD-II socket, like my 01/99 car). I have not tried using a serial port to connect to later cars, but you will probably want to confirm that it works before buying a serial port reader.

Cheers R.