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

From: David Lee (davidlee_malvern_at_dont.use.this.bit.hotmail.com)
Date: 06/30/04 

Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 17:21:14 +0100

Dale DePriest wrote...
>
> One thing that bugs me is that most laptops still have parallel ports. I
> have much more use for a serial port than a parallel port so how is it
> that one port is gone and the bigger port is still there. Perhaps
> someone will write a driver for serial devices plugged into the parallel
> port.
>

The parallel port is still very useful for other things apart from printers.
There are still programs that use parallel port 'dongles' as licence keys.
It is also an easily hacked interface for DIY projects needing faster
throughput than you can get with RS232.

AFAIK there were serial/parallel interfaces available for driving centronics
priters from serial ports and vice versa.

The big advantage of RS232 and parallel ports is it's very easy to get at
the raw signal data with a minimum of driver overhead.
David

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