I did as instructed and this is what happened:

1- I guess they're operating=2E

2- dmesg | grep tty
   ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq =3D 4) is a 16550
   ttyS02 at 0x03e8 (irq =3D 4 <this might be wrong>) is a 16550A
   ttyS04 at port 0xec00 (irq=3D9) is a 16550A

:-)Mike(-:
-I just found out that I am not going to have easy computer access  when the=
 owner of the house I am watching gets home (tonight)=2E That means I need s=
omeone who can help me to get in touch with me (whenever they can) and set u=
p a time to help me=2E

1=2E Make sure the bios has the ports enabled=2E

2=2E upon reboot: 'dmesg | grep tty' Look thru the output of that
   and maybe you are looking at something a bit higher (/dev/ttyS1-5 ?)

If either of these do not work, go get a external modem and never worry
about these issues again=2E :-) I have always found the external modems
to just plain work=2E

-Mike