Re: Why are laptops no longer made with serial ports?

From: Pieter Litchfield (pvcl_at_*nospam*plitch.com)
Date: 06/30/04 

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 10:38:20 GMT

This is exactly right. In addition:
1. USB ports are physically smaller than serial (db-9) connectors, so mount
easier on a laptop case.
2. USB devices can be easy plug-n-play under windows. Serial cannot.
3. USB can handle more bandwidth, therefor a wide variety of devices -
never try a disk drive on a serial port! The same USB port cana be used to
hook up and use a printer, modem, disk drive, etc.

So there are a lot of good reasons to have a USB port, especially on a thin
laptop. You can get either a card with a serial port or a card with a USB
port for your desktop PC, so setting one up for USB GPS should be no
problem. So now we only need to focus on laptops with only USB ports as the
"problem." They are around because of reasons above. Most laptop users
will NOT be using GPS but will communicate with a bunch of other devices via
USB. For most ordinary business users, RS-232 and (to a lesser degree)
Centronics ports are dead. Perhaps we should speculate on "why do GPS
makers insist on RS-232 ports instead of USB?" Part of the answer, I
suspect, is because many legacy devices like autopilots still use rs-232
connected serial ports. I know my DGPS beacon receiver does.

In any case, if you are really upset about the lack of serial ports on a
laptop, you can always get a serial port on a card to stick in a slot.
Peronally, I'd find the right USB serial - USB dongle to work with mine.

"Seagull" <seagull@aracnet.com> wrote in message
news:cbt4l60nhk@enews4.newsguy.com...
> Bonzo <nobody@spam.com> wrote:
> >
> > Can anyone think of any product other than GPS that you can buy
> > at best buy that still uses RS232?
>
> That's not the point. The point is that there's a huge install base of
> industrial, commercial and consumer equipment that speaks RS232 and
> has for decades. That cannot be replaced overnight. RS232 will need
> to exist as long as there is a significant amount of technology in
> use in the world that depends on it.
>
>
> Cheers,
> -+JLS
>
> --
> \ carpe cavy!
> seagull @ aracnet.com \
> http://www.aracnet.com/~seagull/ \ (seize the guinea pig!)

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Mapping Software recommendations
    ... All of my experience has been with a GPS that needs a serial to USB ... split into virtual ports with GpsGate. ... I'll also have to install some of the older SAs till I ...
    (rec.outdoors.rv-travel)
  • Re: BUFFALO WLI-U2-KG54-AI USB adaptor stopped being recognized
    ... I'd still appreciate your advice on choosing the right card though. ... If twere my own laptop and I was convinced that I would be likely to find ... around than the USB2 card and USB wireless adaptor, ... both in numbers of ports and in prices. ...
    (alt.internet.wireless)
  • Re: AHCI - remove probing of ata2
    ... ACPI: bus type pci registered ... registered new interface driver hub ... USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver v3.0 ... hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: BUFFALO WLI-U2-KG54-AI USB adaptor stopped being recognized
    ... If twere my own laptop and I was convinced that I would be likely to find ... around than the USB2 card and USB wireless adaptor, ... both in numbers of ports and in prices. ...
    (alt.internet.wireless)
  • Re: Help interpreting AHCI failure messages
    ... investigate I decided to try putting the root fs on a usb memory stick ... PERCPU: Allocating 57344 bytes of per cpu data ... registered new interface driver hub ... hub 1-0:1.0: 6 ports detected ...
    (Linux-Kernel)