your best bet is getting one of the pl2303 cables on ebay for $5 shipped. RS232 works on a +/- 3-15v signal where less than -3v is a logical 1, and more than 3v is a logical 0. USB is NRZI encoded and uses 3.3v on the D+ and D- lines. the D+/D- are differential except for occasional key frames and I think every 6 bits of 0 a level change is forced. it's not as simple as "connect pin 4 to pin 3"