Well, yesterday I finally picked up a DB9 female/female cable, only to spend the better part of my day (afternoon class cancelled) trying to stop the repeat serial data errors I was seeing. After a while, I finally threw my hands up, and brought the cable to class today. No dice on the lab machines, nor with a different BX24, but a different cable worked just fine. Pretty ticked since I spent 15 bucks on what is probably the most important component only to waste a whole day and realize it's defective.

So, I'm borrowing a working cable for the time being. I have until Monday to create my project from nothingness, so today (thanks to another class cancellation) is Learn-BasicX-Day. Hopefully, my concept with solidify further once I start writing code.