Bill Coleman wrote:
>"Very soon" is right now. Apple introduced the original iMac in 1998,
>and it had no RS-232 ports. That got the USB ball rolling, since the
>only way to add peripherals was through USB.
>
>
Most desktop PCs in the chain stores these days have had ONE RS-232 and
ONE parallel port. The latest laptop (Acer) here has
NO RS-232 and NO parallel port. Trade journals make it clear that these
(bulky and "slow") legacy ports will be completely gone in consumer
desktop machines soon, too.
It's futile to argue the merits of the different interface specs from
our vantage point of a very small user base. Rather, we're going to
have to take what's offered and devise or buy suitableconversion
techniques, as required. A USB-to-RS-232 adapter to connect to the
Alpha amplifier, for instance. Or, build up your own desktop PC for as
long as you can buy and keep running motherboards with PCI slots, legacy
ports, and processors fast enough for your operating needs.
I have purchased an inexpensive "PCI-to-muliple-RS232" card from
ByteRunner for my desktop PC, but the PCI bus is going away soon, too.
For my old IBM laptop I've purchased a "USB-to-multiple-RS-232"
"dongle". However, thus far I haven't found any interface conversion
gadget that converts from USB to a DB25 female parallel port AND
guarantees that it will properly pass non-printer signalling info such
as band-decoder data, CW keying, etc. So I think interfaces currently
based on the parallel port are actually a bigger problem in the near
term than those that use RS-232.
Bud, W2RU
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