Hello,

I have hardware device that accepts serial input over two wires (nmea0183) and outputs the signal over USB.

Unfortunately no driver loads when I attach the device. I can see other devices such as a GPS puck, load drivers and function. Not this device. It seems to not have anything associated with it. I am sure it could use the same driver as the GPS puck, if only to make a small amount of progress into getting this thing to work.

My understanding so far is the unique device ID needs to be assigned to a driver already present ( in the kernel ? ).

Thanks.

When drivers are implemented as kernel modules (they usually are), the modules include the vendor and model codes of devices to which they are compatible. For example:
The string pci:v00008086d00002E6Esv*sd*bc*sc*i* means that this module will be loaded when a device with PCI vendor 8086 and model 2e6e is discovered. The sv, sd codes stand for subvendor and submodel (essentially, OEM vendor and model); in the example, the asterisk means that any subvendor and submodel are accepted. I don't remember the meaning of bc, sc and i.

Thus, my guess is that your device's vendor and model don't correspond to any kernel module on that computer.