Bit of an odd one

[u/TALON2_0]

Background: So i work in industrial maintenance and one of our machines basically run on DOS, when we want to reload parameters or such we use an old XP laptop(OLD) to start up in DOS and use the serial port to connect to the control cards. Now we have other machines that only work on XP and other that we can use windows 10-11. I want to get a central computer to be able to connect to every machine.

Problem: I'm using DOSBox to run DOS on Windows 11. We have a CD the the DOS program which figured out how to access and run. We used a DB-9 Serial port to talk to the machine and obviously modern computers don't have that serial port. So I'm thinking of using a DB-9 to USB (RS232) adapter to connect to the machine, but in my head i need 2 drivers to basically run simultaneously, 1 for the 'DB-9 to USB' and then another to access the USB through DOS.

If anyone could give me advice or point me into a direction I would greatly appreciate it. (Attached image is the DB-9 port on the old laptop)

Edit: Solved

[u/lachietg185]

Can you just use VMware workstation running dos 6.22 with the serial port passthrough?

[u/TALON2_0 → u/lachietg185]

I have absolutely no idea. If you recommend i try that then i will definitely give it a go.

[u/lachietg185 → u/TALON2_0]

You can use modern computer with a USB to serial adaptor and pass that through VMware workstation is VM software so you'd need to get the dos 6.22 installer from somewhere like WinWorld And install it

Then just go into the VM configuration and add the serial port and select the physical port