9:43:01mrcomYou'll probablly fry it. Even if not, I bet the voltages are inverted (real RS-232 has neg. volt for "1" and positive for "0", the opposite of normal).
9:46:58mrcomThe pins on the CP2102 can only take +5.8V/-0.3. The -9 would definitely zap your adapter, and if you're unfortunate the USB port on the PC.
9:47:47mrcomSo you were totally correct--you need another adapter :)
10:01:49mrcomIf you get a RS-232 compatible adapter, and plug the serial end into the old pc with a null-modem cable, then you can run a serial terminal program on the new PC to watch for Mezzano boot messages.
10:02:48mrcomIf you see those, then you can pull in fitzsim's serial-port patches and maybe get a REPL through the serial port.