Demise of the COM port?

First it was notebooks, now even desktop PCs are made with just one or no
RS232 ports.
What's happening?
For us embedded engineers who have developed uC products that communicate
with PCs through COM ports, this situation is getting scary.
I know USB/RS232 converters exist, but they're an added cost, very often
make rebooting necessary and are often the cause of delays which can cause
problems with protocols that worked well on genuine COM ports.

The asynch interface may not be fast, but it's cheap, easy to isolate
galvanically and most uControllers have it built in.

Can we do anything about this trend? Wear 'COM port rulz' or 'USB go home'
t-shirts or something?

"Viktor Kesler" <viktor@REMOVEcardware.co.yu> wrote in message
news:c3cuo2$60k$1@news.eunet.yu...

> Can we do anything about this trend? Wear 'COM port rulz' or 'USB go home'
> t-shirts or something?

I like com ports too, and luckily for me, my laptop has one...

You could look for a PCMCIA (PCCARD) com port card?
I am sure that a PCCARD com port would have the same
latency of a real com port...

--Keith Brafford

Viktor Kesler wrote:

> First it was notebooks, now even desktop PCs are made with just one or no
> RS232 ports.
> What's happening?
> For us embedded engineers who have developed uC products that communicate
> with PCs through COM ports, this situation is getting scary.
> I know USB/RS232 converters exist, but they're an added cost, very often
> make rebooting necessary and are often the cause of delays which can cause
> problems with protocols that worked well on genuine COM ports.
> 
> The asynch interface may not be fast, but it's cheap, easy to isolate
> galvanically and most uControllers have it built in.
> 
> Can we do anything about this trend? Wear 'COM port rulz' or 'USB go home'
> t-shirts or something?

I think serial cards are still available.

Ian

Viktor Kesler wrote:

> First it was notebooks, now even desktop PCs are made with just one or no
> RS232 ports.
> What's happening?

It has been replaced by the Universal Serial Port. (period)


> For us embedded engineers who have developed uC products that communicate
> with PCs through COM ports, this situation is getting scary.

Here is your chance to upgrade all those applications !-)


> I know USB/RS232 converters exist, but they're an added cost, very often
> make rebooting necessary and are often the cause of delays which can cause
> problems with protocols that worked well on genuine COM ports.

But internal support (i.e. motherboard chip) is cheap.


> The asynch interface may not be fast, but it's cheap, easy to isolate
> galvanically and most uControllers have it built in.

Too true.

> Can we do anything about this trend? Wear 'COM port rulz' or 'USB go home'
> t-shirts or something?

"tea shirts"?  Hmm, probably not. - RM

> 
> 
> 
> 

"Viktor Kesler" <viktor@REMOVEcardware.co.yu> wrote in
news:c3cuo2$60k$1@news.eunet.yu: 

> First it was notebooks, now even desktop PCs are made with just one or
> no RS232 ports.
> What's happening?
> For us embedded engineers who have developed uC products that
> communicate with PCs through COM ports, this situation is getting
> scary. I know USB/RS232 converters exist, but they're an added cost,
> very often make rebooting necessary and are often the cause of delays
> which can cause problems with protocols that worked well on genuine
> COM ports. 
> 
> The asynch interface may not be fast, but it's cheap, easy to isolate
> galvanically and most uControllers have it built in.
> 
> Can we do anything about this trend? Wear 'COM port rulz' or 'USB go
> home' t-shirts or something?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

Usually you can fake it with a USB to serial adapter assuming that you 
communicate with standard COM calls.

I am more worried about the disappearance of the Parallel Port. Most new 
printers have a USB port. This is going to be a problem with all the 
simple programmers that we use for programming PLDs, Microcontrollers, 
etc.

-- 
Al Clark
Danville Signal Processing, Inc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
comp.dsp conference July 28 - Aug 1, 2004

details at http://www.danvillesignal.com/index.php?id=compdsp
email: compdsp@danvillesignal.com

Who says you can't teach an old dog a new DSP trick?

Viktor Kesler <viktor@removecardware.co.yu> wrote:

> First it was notebooks, now even desktop PCs are made with just one
> or no RS232 ports. What's happening?

Intel in their infinite wisdom have decided that PCs don't need all
those "legacy" ports any more.  Instead of PS/2 key/mouse, parallel
and serial ports, you get USB.  But that initiative has been announced
and progressing nicely for *years* now.  Where've you been all that
time?

Actually, I think the situation is relatively benign for serial ports,
so far.  You try to find a notebook with a fully functional parallel
port (EPP/ECP/ISO modes included) and you'll find that's even harder.

> For us embedded engineers who have developed uC products that
> communicate with PCs through COM ports, this situation is getting
> scary.

Maybe we've just let ourselves be spoilt by the long-standing fact
that COTS PCs were quite nice and cheap development machines to do
embedded work on.  But there's no law saying this must remain so
forever.

So treat your existing machines well --- they may be the last of their
kind.

And that's before you even start considering the next wave of
"innovations", which rather likely will include a Ball-and-Chain
device (a.k.a. TCPM).

-- 
Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker@physik.rwth-aachen.de)
Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 21:53:35 GMT, Rick Merrill
<RickMerrill@comTHROW.net> wrote:

>Viktor Kesler wrote:
>
>> First it was notebooks, now even desktop PCs are made with just one or no
>> RS232 ports.
>> What's happening?
>
>It has been replaced by the Universal Serial Port. (period)
>
>
>> For us embedded engineers who have developed uC products that communicate
>> with PCs through COM ports, this situation is getting scary.
>
>Here is your chance to upgrade all those applications !-)
>
>

The applications are not the problem. There isn't any USB hardware
available for many of the smaller processors, even if they could keep
up with the transfer rate. I still work with new devices that can't
handle more than 1200 bits per second data transfer. And even you
couldn't convince my boss to spend the extra money for faster
processors with more memory.

Bob McConnell
N2SPP

Viktor Kesler wrote:
> 
> First it was notebooks, now even desktop PCs are made with just one or no
> RS232 ports.
> What's happening?
> For us embedded engineers who have developed uC products that communicate
> with PCs through COM ports, this situation is getting scary.
> I know USB/RS232 converters exist, but they're an added cost, very often
> make rebooting necessary and are often the cause of delays which can cause
> problems with protocols that worked well on genuine COM ports.
> 
> The asynch interface may not be fast, but it's cheap, easy to isolate
> galvanically and most uControllers have it built in.
> 
> Can we do anything about this trend? Wear 'COM port rulz' or 'USB go home'
> t-shirts or something?

Yes, you can get used to the change and start working *with* USB instead
of fighting it.  The mighty oak tree breaks in the wind while the lowly
reed bends with it.  :) 

For example, the give away Cypress PSOC invention board uses USB.  One
chip, likely cheaper than an RS-232 converter, provides the USB
interface.  The connectors come in two flavors, small and tiny.  It was
designed from the get-go (not gecko) to be low cost and yet run at 12
Mbps at 5 meters.  I like it and I will be getting very used to it.  

-- 

Rick "rickman" Collins

rick.collins@XYarius.com
Ignore the reply address. To email me use the above address with the XY
removed.

Arius - A Signal Processing Solutions Company
Specializing in DSP and FPGA design      URL http://www.arius.com
4 King Ave                               301-682-7772 Voice
Frederick, MD 21701-3110                 301-682-7666 FAX

Al Clark <dsp@danvillesignal.com> wrote in message news:<Xns94B0B4B091990aclarkdanvillesignal@66.133.130.30>...
> Usually you can fake it with a USB to serial adapter assuming that you 
> communicate with standard COM calls.
> 
> I am more worried about the disappearance of the Parallel Port. Most new 
> printers have a USB port. This is going to be a problem with all the 
> simple programmers that we use for programming PLDs, Microcontrollers, 
> etc.


Of course USB->parallel adapters exist too (appear to be about $25). 
Never used one, and I don't know how much low-level control they leave
to the application (which may limit their use for some of those
applications).

Bob McConnell <rmcconne@NOSPAM.lightlink.com> writes:

> The applications are not the problem.

They are if you don't have the budget :-)

The problem is that the PC has become a generic tool for engineering,
even though it is being designed and redesigned with the assumption
that it is a Windows(tm) memo processor.  Ie, the designer wants to
market the PC to the typical user, whereas engineers are in a niche
market.

You can't expect the PC manufacturers to want to support that niche
market.  However you should be able to expect to find niche
manufacturers who'll sell PCI, USB, or ethernet adapters.

-- 
Darin Johnson
    "Look here.  There's a crop circle in my ficus!"  -- The Tick