help with direct cable connection

[XeNotRoN]

No patch required. Your serial port or the cable may be wrong. I played a lot with serial connection. Use the windows hyperterminal to test the data flow of the serial connection in both directions.
If you need a cable then go to a computer shop and buy an RS232 cable. If you need longer cable then you can make a 20meters long for yourself, we did it
Make your own NULL-modem cable:
Buy 9pin D-sub connectors and a cable with 3 wires in it. Solder the 3 wires to these pins on one of the D-sub connectors: 2, 3, and 5.
Solder the other end of the wires to the second D-sub connector, but exchange pins 2, and 3!

D-SUB1 D-SUB2
2--------------3
3--------------2
5--------------5

Connecting other pins is unnecessary, sc uses only null modem. Good luck!