[RTTY] Commercial Interfaces

[Kok Chen]

On Dec 10, 2012, at 8:53 AM, Jay WS7I wrote regarding Macintosh:

> No RF problems, no windows drivers issues and no third party driver which is actually the problem in this case. 

That is not completely true.  

The RFI part is mostly true, but Apple displays are known to be RF emitters too (both K1GQ and myself had to add artificial grounds to quiet down our displays) and there are plenty of spurs from the brick power supplies for the Apple laptops and Mac Mini. 

If you use a USB sound card or USB serial port, RF can also enter your computer (and the blame placed on software, of course).

The software part is definitely not true.  Just like Windows is a moving target, Mac OS X is one too. 

Like Windows 8, you *will* also have problems with drivers if you upgrade to newer Mac OS X before drivers for FTDI, Prolific etc, are ready -- I believe you still need to use a fourth party Prolific driver today if you run the latest Mac OS, and I have found Keyspan incompatibilities too (not ones that a casual user would not see, though).  

16 bit sound cards that are USB Sound class complaint will not have a problem (and they present no problem with Windows either) but 24 bit sound cards will.  Sound card drivers from M-Audio, for example often lags the OS by a year (or more).

At least you can use a USB Serial Port on a Windows Tablet.  iOS (iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad) does not allow the installation of any third party drivers.  I.e., there is no way to directly use USB serial ports, nor 24-bit sound cards on an iPad.

The take away is that if you look under the hood, they all have warts (hows that for a mixed metaphor :-).  Some developers may have worked around road blocks and have hidden the problems from the user experience, but believe me, the problems are there in Mac OS X.  That is the reason I am still using the OS from two generations ago (Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard).

73
Chen, W7AY