On 5/10/2010 5:59 PM, Brian Gregory [UK] wrote:
wrote in message
u...
On 5/10/2010 6:03 AM, John Smith wrote:
On 10/4/2010 11:59 AM, Brian Gregory [UK] wrote:

...
If you motherboard doesn't advertise itself as having a serial port it
won't
have those pins.

If it does advertise itself as having a serial port it'll come with the
necessary connector, or possibly it'll be an optional extra.


Yes. If you run ancient equipment, you need a USB to serial
dongle/adapter. And, I do have an old SDR which requires one ...

Regards,
JS

At least some motherboards still come with a serial port on the back panel
but don't expect to see it often in the future. On this computer I am
currently using, I have one on the back panel but no internal header. It
matters not as I always turn serial ports off in the BIOS. No point in
having them use up valuable interrupts if they aren't used. I turn the
parallel ports off in the BIOS as well.

The only devices I ever saw using serial ports on computers generally were
modems and printers. Even the printers went to parallel in the early days.
After a while even modems were fitted internally on a card used an ISA or
a PCI slot. The terminals on the very early computers used a serial
connection but they were no longer used in my office by the mid 80s.

The serial port sees so little use (when fitted) that most computers
assemblers don't even bother to fit the header cables. I have a pile of
them in a box that I have collected over the years. They will eventually
get turfed out. I see no potential for them and sometimes wonder why I
collect these items. I notice that computers are dispensing with the
services of the PS2 ports (mouse/keyboard) on a lot of the new
motherboards. They are serial ports of a more specialised nature but even
they are being replaced by the ubiquitous USB connector.

Laptops have long forsaken serial ports. All they do is take up valuable
real estate on the laptop whilst serving no essential purpose. My laptops
have plenty of connectivity without either serial or parallel ports. Both
have an internal modem fitted (unused) and printers are taken care of with
USB ports. Ethernet, firewire and wireless take care of the remainder of
my connectivity needs these days.

Krypsis


Serial ports and parallel ports are both great for connecting homemade
devices and in a few cases a USB to serial converter is not quite good
enough to replace the real thing.

Had I become interested in computers at a much younger age, I might have
tinkered with homemade devices to attach to serial ports. Problem there
is that computers weren't exactly ubiquitous back then so I tinkered
with cars instead.

I can see your point where the USB converter might not be ideal. I
suppose, if you really needed a serial port or two on one of the current
desktops, you could always add a serial port card. That would give you
the appropriate low level access to the hardware that you might need for
your projects.

All these electronic doodads are way to small for my fumbling old
fingers and ancient eyesight. I'll just stick to pounding away at the
keyboard! ;-)

Krypsis