If you still use a black TI-Graph Link cable with your TI-83 Plus graphing calculator to transfer files from your PC to your TI or vice-versa, you might have ran into troubles with TI-Connect, TiLP or TI-Graph Link softwares involving an immediate COM port error message upon trying to establish a connection. TI-Graph Link would display a "Cannot open the communication port" message, TiLP would display "Unable to open COM port" and TI-Connect would simply display a standard message saying that the calc could not be detected.
That problem can be annoying, because it's not as easy to get rid of as it is for newer USB cable connection issues. However, I managed to find two solutions to that problem!
That should hopefully solve your problem and they are the only solutions to it known to date (every other serial linking solution you'll find on old sites will fail with that problem in particular)! (In some cases, building the computer yourself might give better results, assuming you know what you're doing, since pre-built ones often comes with plenty of pre-installed junk)
Alternatively you can also order an USB cable from TI or Ebay. Both might require several months, though, the time your parents stop being so paranoid about the dangers of putting their credit card numbers on the Internet.
