Serial Port Cross-Connect Without Hardware?

[Ed Skinner]

      I need to cross-connect two programs that normally use serial ports 
(both in the same machine). I can do this with a cross-over cable but think 
that a named pipe or something like the loop driver might also work. I've 
dabbled a bit with the named pipe idea but, so far, both programs "know" the 
named pipe isn't a serial port and refuse to have anything to do with it. (I 
think the loop driver is only for disks, is that correct?)
    Any ideas? (If not, I'm off to Fry's at lunch time.)

-- 
Ed Skinner, ed at flat5.net, http://www.flat5.net/
and http://conventionalpistol.blogspot.com/