Do you use direct with a Tiptel phone with serial interface that is connected to your Mac via a USB serial adapter?

Then you need a driver for this adapter.

Support from your vendor

Because of the large number of available USB serial adapters, we cannot support these adapters and their drivers. Please always contact your vendor where you purchased the adapter, or the adaptor's manufacurer.

Our partner TKR offers a support page (german language) for their customers, that may help in case of questions.

Having said this, we have collected all information that we know about the USB serial adapter drivers on this page. Many questions of our customers can be answered with this information.

New driver for Mac OS X Lion?

Some customers report that direct no longer works after an upgrade to Mac OS X Lion.

In some cases the driver of the USB serial adapters just needs to be reinstalled after the OS update. In other cases, a new driver version is required.

Since the adapter's manufacturers often only provide sparse information about OS compatibility of specific driver versions, we always recommend to use the update to Mac OS X Lion to also update your USB serial adapter' driver. Even in those cases where your current driver version seems to run under Mac OS X Lion.

Driver versions

Please first check what kind of USB serial adapter you are using. The important thing here is not the manufacturer of the adapter (of which there are many), but the manufacturer of the adapter's chip set.

We are aware of adapters with chip sets of three manufacturers: FTDI, Keyspan, and Prolific.

For some adapters TKR provides a support page (german language) with pictures of the adaptors.

Alternatively you can use our instructions at the end of this page to determine the type of USB serial adapter that you are using.

FTDI adapter

If you are using an adapter with an FTDI chip set (e.g. from DeLock or Digitus), please install FTDI's current driver version.

Here is FTDI's overview page. As of September 2011, the current driver version is 2.2.16. The three links for the different hardware architectures actually all point to the same driver, so it doesn't matter which link you use.

The installer disk image contains two packages: FTDIUSBSerialDriver_10_3.mpkg and FTDIUSBSerialDriver_10_4_10_5_10_6.mpkg.

Please use the package that matches your Mac OS version. For Mac OS X Lion (10.7) please use the package for Mac OS X 10.6. The driver can be installed under Mac OS X Lion and seems to work properly.

Tip: If you have purchased direct from TKR in March 2008 or later, you are likely using an adapter from DeLock or Digitus, both of which use an FTDI chip.

Keyspan adapter

If you are using a Keyspan adapter (USA-19HS), please install the manufacturer Tripp Lite's current driver version.

Here is Tripp Lite's overview page. We needed to do a search by model number (top right) for "USA-19HS" in order to find the current drivers.

As of September 2011 the current driver version for Mac OS X 10.2 to 10.6 is 2.6.4. There is a beta driver for Mac OS X 10.7.

Prolific adapter

If you are using an adapter with a Prolific chip set (e.g. from Manhattan or Hama), please install Prolific's current driver version.

Here is Prolific's overview page. As of September 2011, the current driver version is 1.4.0 (md_PL2303_MacOSX10.6_dmg_v1.4.0.zip).

This driver supports all Mac OS X versions from 10.1 to 10.7 (Lion).

Tip: If you have purchased direct from TKR before March 2008, you are likely using an adapter from Manhattan, which uses a Prolific chip.

Which USB serial adapter do I have?

There are various ways to try to find out what kind of USB serial adapters or what driver you are using.

1.

The easiest way, of course, would be if you would remember, or would find the driver's installer package ;-)

2.

If the adapter is connected to your Mac, the adapter's manufacturer as well as the chip set may be displayed in System Profiler (Apple menu -> About this Mac -> More Information). Please check under Hardware / USB.

3.

The third option is to look for the installed driver. Typically the driver is located in /System/Library/Extensions.

If you find a file "FTDIUSBSerialDriver.kext", an FTDI driver is installed.
If you find a file "KeyspanUSAdriver.kext", a Keyspan driver is installed.
If you find a file "ProlificUsbSerial.kext", a Prolific driver is installed.

Depending on your driver's version, the kext file name may not be identical to this, but it should at least be similar.

4.

The fourth way would be to look for the driver's installer package. The installer packages are located in /Library/Receipts. Double clicking the packages opens the installer, which should display the full name of the driver.

If you find a file "FTDIUSBSerialDriver.pkg" (possibly including the OS name 'Tiger', Panther', or 'Snow Leopard')", an FTDI driver is installed.
If you find a file "KeyspanUSAdrvr12GM.pkg" (possibly with a different version number)", a Keyspan driver is installed.
If you find a file "PL2303_1.2.1.pkg" (possibly with a different version number)", a Prolific driver is installed.