The connector on the back is essentially a non-standard serial connector, and the USB cable is a USB-serial adaptor. You can probably make another work, but only by making an adaptor cable yourself. They have some models where the USB-serial adaptor is integrated into the unit, which is generally a bit easier to use and a more typical approach.
(Generally, such a protocol is a better option from a compatibility point of view: it's usually fairly easy to reverse engineer. It would be interesting to sniff what the windows software is doing to work out what protocol or behaviour difference is responsible)
(Generally, such a protocol is a better option from a compatibility point of view: it's usually fairly easy to reverse engineer. It would be interesting to sniff what the windows software is doing to work out what protocol or behaviour difference is responsible)