Hi Mike,

 PK> It seems Laptop manufactureres are being PUSHED by M$ into an
 PK> environment where there is no native SERIAL port on their
 PK> machines. If a user wants one of those, they have to install a
 PK> PCMCIA card serial port. The apparent reason for this is that USB
 PK> is now seen by M$ for all serial type connections (and forget all
 PK> existing serial port H/W out there today!).

 MT> The push (and design) of USB has come from an industry consortium of 
 MT> hardware vendors...not some M$ conspiracy.  9 and 25-pin serial ports, 
 MT> parallel printer ports, AT- and PS/2-style keyboard 
 MT> ports and mouse ports are all royalty bearing, patented 
 MT> designs of IBM and each vendor must have some 
 MT> arrangement with IBM in order to provide them.

The DB-9 and DB-25 Serial connectors, and the Centronics Parallel printer
connector have nothing to do with IBM, the are hardware standards that
existed long before IBM used them on the PC. The AT & PS/2 connectors
however are all IBM. 

 MT> If anything, waiting for MS to provide 
 MT> proper functional OS support for USB devices has done 
 MT> more to slow the adoption rate than accelerate it.  The 
 MT> hardware has been around since the Win95/NT4 generation 
 MT> of MS OS.

Bill is just making sure he makes enough profit from it.

My main issue is the huge no. of existing environments that still need
FULLY FUNCTIONAL Serial support, not just with the connector, but with the
capability that the interface provides. The problem comes from component
integration, rather than physical design issues, in their hurry to bring
out "comparabile" devices, they leave out certain critical
elements of the overall interface. 

I have been involved in discussions regarding exactly WHAT Laptop H/W is
able to provide the functionality required to various support groups, and
the picture being built is not pretty, mainly because the control signals
need to be emulated where the H/W does not exist to drive them natively. So
far the generation of a CORRECT (and some times varible length) BREAK
signal seems to be the main show stopper, to many it has been forgotten... 

Cheers.........pk.


--- Maximus/2 3.01