If your laptop doesn't have a hardware 9-pin serial port you'll need a USB-serial adapter, they do offer one as an option with the unit or you can get one from Amazon, computer store etc. I might have played around for longer but it's rather cold outside here today so I called it quits for now. I'll check again at a later time to see if any come back. Did some poking around and even cleared some (presumably old) DTCs that were lurking in areas where an OBDII scanner would never see them. I had to mess around a bit to make the HDS accept a fake repair order # and then I was in. After numerous tries I decided to swap out the adapter for another one and it connected right away.

But it wouldn't connect the HDS to the vehicle. I could program the HIM and see it respond, and it even passed a self-test with the loopback plugs they give you.

It took me a while to get it going because for some reason the USB-serial adapter I was using was only allowing partial communication between the HIM and my laptop.

I'm back with an update, and happily it's positive.

Honda hds cracked