[André Sarmento] needed to connect a computer to an RS-485 bus. A simple converter can be sourced online, but the only thing he could find locally that was even close was a USB to RS-232 converter.

Add or Remove Programs entry for FTDI USB Serial Converter Drivers. This is a driver pack that allows USB ports to be used to connect to Serial bus devices with a USB - Serial adapter cable.

PCMCIA serial adapter cards provide one or more serial ports to a host computer. They use a PCMCIA card bus to interface with the host, and add RS232, RS422, RS485, or other types of serial ports.

Serial adapters allow serial connections to USB, Bluetooth, RS232, RS485 and other types of interfaces ... database contains information about a number of different serial adapter connector types. DB9 ...