On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 19:59:21 +0000 (UTC), (Mike
Andrews) wrote:

They're fairly common now. My wife's work laptop has no serial port,
just USB, Ethernet, monitor output, and some weird DIN-like thing
that *isn't* a mouse or KB port.


If it's a fairly new laptop, the port is most likely S-Video
out so you can play DVDs through a cable to your TV.

In article ,
pamme says...
I use a USB external modem. When plugged in, the computer automatically
assigned the modem COM3, no special adapters needed. I would think plugging a
TNC in would have a similar affect.

This is assuming you can find a TNC that supports direct connection to
the PC with a USB cable. I have yet to find one. Better to use the
USB-to-serial cables with the appropriate drivers.

Then again, I've never heard of a computer without a serial port. That is a bit
strange.

Forgive my bluntness, but get used to it. ;-) RS-232 and parallel ports
are considered "legacy ports" by today's standards. More and more
computers are starting to appear on the market that don't even have PS/2
ports for keyboards and mice, expecting the purchaser to use either a
port replicator for that purpose -- port reps are available that either
hard-dock to the computer or use a USB port themselves to connect to the
PC -- or to use USB-based mice and keyboards (or mice/keyboards that are
wireless and working with a USB-based IR or RF transceiver).

I understand that Windows XP is even moving away from supporting legacy
ports. The current version does not natively support parallel-port
interrupts, from what I've read -- it has to slow way down to support
printing directly through the parallel port -- but hasn't gone so far as
to dump RS-232 support (fortunately). There will be more and more
movement away from traditional serial/parallel port support and towards
USB and FireWire connections.

We just had a couple of Inspiron 5100 notebooks from Dell come in at
work to be configured before sending them out to some of our field
staff. No PS/2 port, no serial or parallel ports, just VGA and USB.
Nice machines, though! I'm thinking very seriously about picking one up
myself!

--

-- //Steve//

Steve Silverwood, KB6OJS
Fountain Valley, CA
Email:
Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~kb6ojs_steve

In article , says...
They're fairly common now. My wife's work laptop has no serial port,
just USB, Ethernet, monitor output, and some weird DIN-like thing
that *isn't* a mouse or KB port.

That's probably an S-Video port, for use in playing DVDs and such out to
a TV set.

--

-- //Steve//

Steve Silverwood, KB6OJS
Fountain Valley, CA
Email:
Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~kb6ojs_steve

In article ,
pamme says...
I use a USB external modem. When plugged in, the computer automatically
assigned the modem COM3, no special adapters needed. I would think plugging a
TNC in would have a similar affect.

This is assuming you can find a TNC that supports direct connection to
the PC with a USB cable. I have yet to find one. Better to use the
USB-to-serial cables with the appropriate drivers.

Then again, I've never heard of a computer without a serial port. That is a bit
strange.

Forgive my bluntness, but get used to it. ;-) RS-232 and parallel ports
are considered "legacy ports" by today's standards. More and more
computers are starting to appear on the market that don't even have PS/2
ports for keyboards and mice, expecting the purchaser to use either a
port replicator for that purpose -- port reps are available that either
hard-dock to the computer or use a USB port themselves to connect to the
PC -- or to use USB-based mice and keyboards (or mice/keyboards that are
wireless and working with a USB-based IR or RF transceiver).

I understand that Windows XP is even moving away from supporting legacy
ports. The current version does not natively support parallel-port
interrupts, from what I've read -- it has to slow way down to support
printing directly through the parallel port -- but hasn't gone so far as
to dump RS-232 support (fortunately). There will be more and more
movement away from traditional serial/parallel port support and towards
USB and FireWire connections.

We just had a couple of Inspiron 5100 notebooks from Dell come in at
work to be configured before sending them out to some of our field
staff. No PS/2 port, no serial or parallel ports, just VGA and USB.
Nice machines, though! I'm thinking very seriously about picking one up
myself!

--

-- //Steve//

Steve Silverwood, KB6OJS
Fountain Valley, CA
Email:
Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~kb6ojs_steve

In article , says...
They're fairly common now. My wife's work laptop has no serial port,
just USB, Ethernet, monitor output, and some weird DIN-like thing
that *isn't* a mouse or KB port.

That's probably an S-Video port, for use in playing DVDs and such out to
a TV set.

--

-- //Steve//

Steve Silverwood, KB6OJS
Fountain Valley, CA
Email:
Web: http://home.earthlink.net/~kb6ojs_steve

Steve Silverwood wrote:

In article ,
pamme says...
I use a USB external modem. When plugged in, the computer automatically
assigned the modem COM3, no special adapters needed. I would think plugging a
TNC in would have a similar affect.

This is assuming you can find a TNC that supports direct connection to
the PC with a USB cable. I have yet to find one. Better to use the
USB-to-serial cables with the appropriate drivers.

look on the Byacom website... One of their members has built just
such
a device although the ax25 stack runs on the host. Much of the low
level
packet work is, however, handled in the modem. Hardware design is very
interesting, it consists of a 8051 derivative processor that has built
in USB hardware and a programmable gate array that implements the modem.
The logic in the gate array is specific to the job at hand (i.e. the
logic that is downloaded into the FPGA for 1200 baud operation differs
from that used to implement 9600 baud).

(try www.baycom.org)

regards
-Willy
KC0JFQ

Steve Silverwood wrote:

In article ,
pamme says...
I use a USB external modem. When plugged in, the computer automatically
assigned the modem COM3, no special adapters needed. I would think plugging a
TNC in would have a similar affect.

This is assuming you can find a TNC that supports direct connection to
the PC with a USB cable. I have yet to find one. Better to use the
USB-to-serial cables with the appropriate drivers.

look on the Byacom website... One of their members has built just
such
a device although the ax25 stack runs on the host. Much of the low
level
packet work is, however, handled in the modem. Hardware design is very
interesting, it consists of a 8051 derivative processor that has built
in USB hardware and a programmable gate array that implements the modem.
The logic in the gate array is specific to the job at hand (i.e. the
logic that is downloaded into the FPGA for 1200 baud operation differs
from that used to implement 9600 baud).

(try www.baycom.org)

regards
-Willy
KC0JFQ

"Steve Silverwood" wrote in message
k.net...
In article ,
pamme says...
I use a USB external modem. When plugged in, the computer automatically
assigned the modem COM3, no special adapters needed. I would think
plugging a
TNC in would have a similar affect.

This is assuming you can find a TNC that supports direct connection to
the PC with a USB cable. I have yet to find one. Better to use the
USB-to-serial cables with the appropriate drivers.


BayCom makes a very impressive USB packet radio TNC. That's the only one I
know of, though.

http://www.baycom.org/

Charles Brabham, N5PVL
Director: USPacket.Net
http://www.uspacket.net

"Steve Silverwood" wrote in message
k.net...
In article ,
pamme says...
I use a USB external modem. When plugged in, the computer automatically
assigned the modem COM3, no special adapters needed. I would think
plugging a
TNC in would have a similar affect.

This is assuming you can find a TNC that supports direct connection to
the PC with a USB cable. I have yet to find one. Better to use the
USB-to-serial cables with the appropriate drivers.


BayCom makes a very impressive USB packet radio TNC. That's the only one I
know of, though.

http://www.baycom.org/

Charles Brabham, N5PVL
Director: USPacket.Net
http://www.uspacket.net