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November 25th 03, 09:04 AM

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

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