Dave Hansen wrote:>"Chris_99" <cgruff@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Now that all the cuel new laptops have no serial ports and no >> PCMCIA card slot, and I am stuck haplessly with USB, does anyone >> have a good experience with any USB (or fire-wire) serial devices?I can't stand the suspense any longer. What is a "cuel laptop"? I can't make any sense of any possible typo or misspelling. -- "If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on "show options" at the top of the article, then click on the "Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson More details at: <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/> Also see <http://www.safalra.com/special/googlegroupsreply/>
What is the best USB-to-RS232 adapter out there?
Started by ●May 12, 2006
Reply by ●May 13, 20062006-05-13
Reply by ●May 13, 20062006-05-13
On Sat, 13 May 2006 09:42:34 -0400, the renowned CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> wrote:>Dave Hansen wrote: >>"Chris_99" <cgruff@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Now that all the cuel new laptops have no serial ports and no >>> PCMCIA card slot, and I am stuck haplessly with USB, does anyone >>> have a good experience with any USB (or fire-wire) serial devices? > >I can't stand the suspense any longer. What is a "cuel laptop"? I >can't make any sense of any possible typo or misspelling.He means 'kewl'. Best regards, Spehro Pefhany -- "it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward" speff@interlog.com Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
Reply by ●May 13, 20062006-05-13
CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> wrote:>Dave Hansen wrote: >>"Chris_99" <cgruff@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Now that all the cuel new laptops ... >I can't stand the suspense any longer. What is a "cuel laptop"? I >can't make any sense of any possible typo or misspelling."cuel" := "cool" It took me a long time to figure this out. I guess you and I are not cuel anymore...
Reply by ●May 13, 20062006-05-13
In article <gj5c62l1u9pcag462ivvpohb9bgju7uvbl@4ax.com>, Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.net> writes>CBFalconer <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> wrote: >>Dave Hansen wrote: >>>"Chris_99" <cgruff@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Now that all the cuel new laptops ... >>I can't stand the suspense any longer. What is a "cuel laptop"? I >>can't make any sense of any possible typo or misspelling. > >"cuel" := "cool" > >It took me a long time to figure this out. I guess you and I are not >cuel anymore...Well, I thought he missed the "r" out, since I think it's particularly cruel that these laptops have no serial ports :p
Reply by ●May 13, 20062006-05-13
On 2006-05-13, Bob <spambox42@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:>>"cuel" := "cool" >> >>It took me a long time to figure this out. I guess you and I are not >>cuel anymore... > > Well, I thought he missed the "r" out, since I think it's > particularly cruel that these laptops have no serial ports :pA USB serial cable is only $10 if you keep your eyes open. I, for one, am quite happy to pay the $10 in return for the cheap laptop prices that mass-market volume has brought. The mass market doesn't need serial ports, so mass-market laptops aren't going to have them. -- Grant Edwards grante Yow! Is this "BIKINI at BEACH"? visi.com
Reply by ●May 13, 20062006-05-13
In article <126cfkkio9is75c@corp.supernews.com>, Grant Edwards <grante@visi.com> writes>On 2006-05-13, Bob <spambox42@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > >>>"cuel" := "cool" >>> >>>It took me a long time to figure this out. I guess you and I are not >>>cuel anymore... >> >> Well, I thought he missed the "r" out, since I think it's >> particularly cruel that these laptops have no serial ports :p > >A USB serial cable is only $10 if you keep your eyes open. I, >for one, am quite happy to pay the $10 in return for the cheap >laptop prices that mass-market volume has brought. The mass >market doesn't need serial ports, so mass-market laptops aren't >going to have them.Apparently you missed the smiley...
Reply by ●May 13, 20062006-05-13
Ulf Samuelsson wrote:> > But if you've got something more esoteric, with tight timing > > requirements, such as a chip programmer or a dongle, something that > > isn't "pure", it may be that no USB device will work with it. For > > example, no USB serial or parallel port (that I'm aware of, at least) > > will allow you to toggle a control line faster than 500 Hz (the time > > base for USB frames is 1 ms). > > If you are using a standard driver. > Why not use more end points and a non standard protocol > USB <-> JTAG Emulators certainly toggle the JTAG faster than 500 HzYes, because they don't bit-bang JTAG with the PC software. They send data and commands down to a microncontroller in the dongle, which then does the bit-banging locally, without having to work through the USB latency. Some even have a CPLD/FPGA in there to handle the serial protocol in hardware (freescale HCS12 BDM protocol for example is very hard to do in software as it is locked to the target clock frequency, rather than timed by the programmer) USB is a good interface for embedded programmers - but you have to put the detailed target interaction on the other end of the USB cable, and only sends higher level things that can tolerate some latency over the USB. It's an inconvenient, but fairly general trend, that the faster PC's become, the greater latency they suffer in interacting with the outside world. Absolutely in terms of processor clock cycles, and often even in terms of time - a good old ISA pentium machine with a real parallel port is a better platform for CPU-based realtime tinkering than the latest multi-GHZ no-legacy box. On a modern box, you're back to having to use IO processors to handle anything that can't tolerate substantial turnaround latency.
Reply by ●May 13, 20062006-05-13
everybody else covered it. i would add that i have had the occasional buffering problem with the converters. that is to say that if you have something like say a pic usart talking to your computer via rs-232 and you turn off the pic and then turn it back on you can sometimes suddenly get "old" data out of the converter, stuff that was queued up before the processor was cycled. but even that is a minor problem, i've not ever had it cause real problems. maybe it could though if say you were using a GPS receiver and ... i don't know, i have trouble even thinking of a situation where that could get you into any real mischief lol ... Chris_99 wrote:> Gang: > > Now that all the cuel new laptops have no serial ports and no PCMCIA > card slot, and I am stuck haplessly with USB, does anyone have a good > experience with any USB (or fire-wire) serial devices? > > I have many legacy apps that want to talk to a UART real bad and the > quality of the driver would be the issue here. > > I would really appreciate a couple of names of devices I could purchase > and try with all of these old utilities... > > Thanks! > > Chris
Reply by ●May 14, 20062006-05-14
Bob wrote:> In article <126cfkkio9is75c@corp.supernews.com>, Grant Edwards > <grante@visi.com> writes >> On 2006-05-13, Bob <spambox42@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: >> >>>> "cuel" := "cool" >>>> >>>> It took me a long time to figure this out. I guess you and I are not >>>> cuel anymore... >>> Well, I thought he missed the "r" out, since I think it's >>> particularly cruel that these laptops have no serial ports :p >> A USB serial cable is only $10 if you keep your eyes open. I, >> for one, am quite happy to pay the $10 in return for the cheap >> laptop prices that mass-market volume has brought. The mass >> market doesn't need serial ports, so mass-market laptops aren't >> going to have them. > > Apparently you missed the smiley...What bugs me most with modern laptops is that they often lack a parallel port. For most uses, a USB-based serial port will work perfectly well (and it's easy to add several), but for simple, cheap and easy-to-use programming adaptors nothing beats the parallel port.
Reply by ●May 14, 20062006-05-14
David Brown wrote:>... snip ...> > What bugs me most with modern laptops is that they often lack a > parallel port. For most uses, a USB-based serial port will work > perfectly well (and it's easy to add several), but for simple, > cheap and easy-to-use programming adaptors nothing beats the > parallel port.There are three essentials that are missing from far too many machines. If the public simply insisted on them they would be present. All are cheap. 1. Real serial port(s) 2. Real parallel port(s) 3. ECC memory. The first two are for usability, the last for reliability. -- "If you want to post a followup via groups.google.com, don't use the broken "Reply" link at the bottom of the article. Click on "show options" at the top of the article, then click on the "Reply" at the bottom of the article headers." - Keith Thompson More details at: <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/> Also see <http://www.safalra.com/special/googlegroupsreply/>
