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Vlad

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I was just browsing Newegg and was amused to find a PCI-e card that gave you 2 serial ports. Looks like despite being phased out from newer motherboards the serial port is still hanging on. Just found it interesting...
 
Vlad said:
I was just browsing Newegg and was amused to find a PCI-e card that gave you 2 serial ports. Looks like despite being phased out from newer motherboards the serial port is still hanging on. Just found it interesting...
Click to expand...

I still use Serial ports, and I'm actually quite irritated that modern Windows does'nt like my older Microspeed PC-TRAC trackballs that much, however, I made a workaround using a Serial to USB converter and so far that's worked out quite well. It's a tad surreal seeing a 20 year old PC-TRAC address itself as an HID Compliant human interface device in Windows 2000.
 
I've thought about trying a Serial to USB but didn't know how well it would work out driver wise. I didn't know it'd be a HID device. I wonder how well it'd work out with Linux...
 
Serial is not dead yet, not by a long shot. There are a lot of industrial and military applications that require RS232, RS422 and RS485. And you can readily find multi-port PCI cards for modern machines.
 
Wow, I didn't know that. Never saw a PCI/PCI-e Serial card until I stumbled across that one. I knew they were still used heavily in industrial applications but just assumed that they came from who ever built the machines.
 
mbbrutman said:
Serial is not dead yet, not by a long shot. There are a lot of industrial and military applications that require RS232, RS422 and RS485. And you can readily find multi-port PCI cards for modern machines.
Click to expand...

In fact, I just pulled a PCI dual RS-485 card out of a computer that someone dumped on me the other day. I don't think too many people looking for a second computer for the kids would have much use for it.
 
Vlad said:
I've thought about trying a Serial to USB but didn't know how well it would work out driver wise. I didn't know it'd be a HID device. I wonder how well it'd work out with Linux...
Click to expand...

Tried it there using Fedora Core 8 just recently, works great there as well.
 
Vlad said:
Wow, I didn't know that. Never saw a PCI/PCI-e Serial card until I stumbled across that one. I knew they were still used heavily in industrial applications but just assumed that they came from who ever built the machines.
Click to expand...
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All kinds of them around; I've got several 2 & 4 port cards and there's a company right here in Toronto that makes a wide range; have a look at:
www.lavalink.com

mike
 
Druid6900 said:
And Lava's been making cards for a LONG time. I have, I believe, 3 Lava 8-bit VGA cards from a good time ago.
Click to expand...
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Yeah, I recall buying cards from them when I was *much* younger.

BTW, I may actually be out your way again soonish; want me to bring ya anything? Some nice monitors, dot matrix printers, you know, all the stuff people really want that's cheap to ship... ;-)

m
 
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