flashing with out ftdi cable

[nhbubba]

I sure would feel a lot more comfortable flashing if I had a cable.

Having access to the serial port undoubtedly helps in other cases too, like when you fubar your 'net config and suddenly can't ping/telnet/ssh to the device. Maybe you something really dumb like mistakenly take the CPU's switch port out of both vlans or something. A serial console will help make it all well again.

I'm anxious to give the new spin of openWRT a try... but holding off until my cable arrives.

That said, @ $20 the FTDI cable increases the cost of this little science experiment by almost 60%!

[mightyohm]

True, but the cable is useful for so many other things (like flashing new games to the Adafruit Fuzebox) and handy to have around...

[nhbubba]

Found this:

http://www.openschemes.com/modules/word ... l-ports/1/

Way to hack some cheapo USB<->serial adapters to do 3.3V serial levels.