I know this seems ridiculous, but I want to confirm.

I have an older Dell Latitude D520 laptop that I purchased specifically to tune my Miata and my 540/6.

So, I see lots of guys running USB to Serial adapters, but my older laptop has a serial port, so I don't need to worry about an adapter, but can just connect via cable.

Do people just run the adapters on laptops that don't have a serial port?

 

Absolutely.
People are even using bluetooth.

The usb that diy sells works flawlessly.
http://www.diyautotune.com/catalog/u...tune-p-67.html

 

yup, most modern laptops don't have serial, hence the use of the adapters.
Bluetooth works as well, but is not as stable. You'll find you cannot upgrade firmware or load an entire msq through bluetooth.

 

Your oldschool serial equipped laptop will be 1000% reliable and much better than an adaptor IMO.

Plug it in and tune, getting the bloody laptop to communicate with the ecu is 90% of the battle on a new setup at the dyno.

Dann