serial ports going the way of the floppy
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Good grief. The latest laptop I bought a few months ago, a Toshiba, doesn't have serial ports! And I need serial ports for an app that I'm converting from DOS to Windows for a client! Well, time to google for USB-serial port or a PCMCIA card, I guess. Just what I always wanted for Christmas--a serial port device for my laptop. NOT! (and no, the laptop doesn't have a floppy either. Has built in WiFi though.) Marc Latest AAL Article My blog Join my forum!
When the company I work for offered to get me a new laptop, I specifically requested that it include a floppy drive and a serial port - so I ended up with one that has almost everything - Floppy, Serial, Parallel, 3 USB 2.0, Firewire, SVideo out, RGB Out, DVD/CDRW, Modem, Ethernet, 2 PCMCIA slots, 512MB RAM, 40GB Hard drive, 2.0GHz P4-M and a nice 15.1" Screen, XP-Pro - all for around $1800. The only thing I had to add was an 802.11g wireless card. Battery life is really good - over 4 hours. Weight is under 4lbs. Steve
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Marc Clifton wrote: --all those dot matrix printers, especially old receipt printers, don't have drivers for Windows, or if they do, they're pieces of crap... Hmmm - well gee golly - you'd think Epson would have something kicking around. In any case, he's not printing receipts and such and will probably go for an upgrade there too. Saaaaaay - maybe there's a market for Windows brrrrap matrix printer drivers! Kah'ching!:cool:
>maybe there's a market for Windows brrrrap matrix printer drivers! Hell yeah. a: Lasers/bubble-jets can't be used for multi-copy paper and b: a fine Kayosha printer outperforms any laser on the market. My dad's firm still uses them and they are incredible. Hundreds of pages per minute, the paper literally flies through them. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Brian Welsch wrote: "blah blah blah, maybe a potato?" while translating my Afrikaans. Crikey! ain't life grand? Einstein says...
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Can't really blame 'em, I haven't used a serial port in years. I think the last time I had to use a serial port was for an old computer that needed a mouse, but didn't have a dedicated mouse port. I have a feeling parallel will eventually follow suit, although printers (especially expensive ones) tend to outlast computers, so there will be a lot of parallel printers out there for some time. No single raindrop believes that it is responsible for the flood.
We're still using com ports to sync our old Palms, in those docking stations. "For all of our languages, we cannot communicate" - Christy Moore, Natives
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Can't really blame 'em, I haven't used a serial port in years. I think the last time I had to use a serial port was for an old computer that needed a mouse, but didn't have a dedicated mouse port. I have a feeling parallel will eventually follow suit, although printers (especially expensive ones) tend to outlast computers, so there will be a lot of parallel printers out there for some time. No single raindrop believes that it is responsible for the flood.
Navin wrote: Can't really blame 'em, I haven't used a serial port in years. I use them all the time - for controlling LCD projectors remotely. And I've still got a crappy 56k serial modem.
Ryan
"Punctuality is only a virtue for those who aren't smart enough to think of good excuses for being late" John Nichol "Point Of Impact"
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Shog9 wrote: Same here. And the USB<->serial converter i bought works like sh*t (kernel crashes if the computer goes into sleep mode) I've yet to see a USB<->Serial converter that actually works as claimed. :( -- In the land of the blind, be king![^]
I've got a USB->IRDa dongle which works quite nicly. It's sort of similar :)**
*¨¨`) ¸¸.·´ ¸.·*¨¨`) (¸¸.·* ¸ .·* ¸¸.·* (¸¸.~~> Joel Holdsworth.
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When the company I work for offered to get me a new laptop, I specifically requested that it include a floppy drive and a serial port - so I ended up with one that has almost everything - Floppy, Serial, Parallel, 3 USB 2.0, Firewire, SVideo out, RGB Out, DVD/CDRW, Modem, Ethernet, 2 PCMCIA slots, 512MB RAM, 40GB Hard drive, 2.0GHz P4-M and a nice 15.1" Screen, XP-Pro - all for around $1800. The only thing I had to add was an 802.11g wireless card. Battery life is really good - over 4 hours. Weight is under 4lbs. Steve
Yes I had to buy a laptop for my boss, who programs PICs down the RS232. The machine turned out to be a real chunky sucker**
*¨¨`) ¸¸.·´ ¸.·*¨¨`) (¸¸.·* ¸ .·* ¸¸.·* (¸¸.~~> Joel Holdsworth.
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