Not so subtle, I would say. RS232 is a well established signalling standard,
and isn't going away in the foreseeable future. It is also, by it's nature,
more appropriate around a ham station. COM ports may no longer be imbedded
in the motherboard, they will be available as plug-in cards or USB devices.
Support won't disappear either... far too many legacy applications for
them... and not just in PC's, but in process control applications...
Besides... what would replace them (RS232 ports)?
Using LPT for control is a "kluge"... done because it could be done
cheaply... and TTL is NOT a good way to interface with the world with RF
around. If you look at the original IBM spec for LPT ports... the printer
cable length was not supposed to exceed 6 feet!
That being said, I would have preferred that Wayne had continued to support
LPT ports directly until a replacement was available... Plug-in cards, such
as Lava's products, will be around for a while I'm sure... there are still a
lot of printers around with LPT ports. I can't see LPT disappearing in the
next decade...
>I would like to add that there is a subtle difference important to
>contesters between the future of LPT ports and the future of COM ports
>in Windows.
Mel...
VE2DC
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