New toys

From: Ian Primus <ian_primus_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Wed Sep 24 20:30:12 2003

On Wednesday, September 24, 2003, at 06:16 PM, Tony Duell wrote:

>> other serial devices you might care to attach. Back in those days
>> no one would have taken a computer with no serial ports very
>> seriously.
>
> Some of us still don't! 2 serial ports is barely enough anyway
> (especially if you want to use the machine as a terminal to 2 or 3
> other
> computers, link it to your (HP) calculator, etc).

Definitely. Serial ports are always the first thing that I run out of
on a computer, it seems, and when I got my new computer (Power
Macintosh G4), it didn't even have one serial port! I have a USB to
serial adapter, and it works, but I would rather get one of those
multiport serial I/O boards, but they are more than $100 for one. You'd
think that for such a nice computer, they could have at least tossed in
a couple serial ports (and a floppy drive... and what happened to my
SCSI!!!... grrr.....). At least my homemade PC clone running Linux
still has two serial ports, as that was my major concern when
purchasing the logic board, and even then, two isn't really enough, I
have a VT100 connected to one port, and a switchbox on the other with
my Palm Pilot sync cable, another computer, and a serial dot matrix
printer connected to it.

>> Serial ports have only started disappearing from PCs in the last year
>> or two.
>
> To be replaced by that infernal USB internface. Which is not Universal,
> since none of my machines have it or can have it added, and which is
> not
> a Bus (at least not electrically). OK, it is Serial, so one out of
> three
> is not too bad :-)

Yeah, I hate USB as well. It is far from Universal, considering that
very little USB hardware works on a Macintosh due to the lack of
drivers, and even with the proper drivers, it seems to be flakey at
best. Too many things these days are centered around the WinTel
platform, thereby alienating everyone else that uses other systems.
People like me that use Macintosh and Linux are too small of a market
share I guess, but more and more people are starting to see the light
and dump Windblows.

</rant>

Ian Primus
ian_primus_at_yahoo.com
Received on Wed Sep 24 2003 - 20:30:12 BST