Re: PC components - check mobo has external serial port

Tony Langdon is a darn nice person I don't care what anybody says!
> At 08:52 PM 12/19/2005, you wrote:
> >Apart from a modem, for what would you use a serial port these days?
> >Yeah, if you need to do a network install, you do need one but like the
> >floppy, the serial port seems to have reached its use by date.
>
> Console access to networking devices (routers, switches, etc) in my
> case.  The serial port on my laptop has been used many times for this
> purpose.
>
> Oh, and for radio interfaces... ;-)
>
I have a box that requires three seperate serial connections, two radio modems 
( 1 X weatherstation , 1 X 14 radio irrigation network ) plus an old heavy 
duty UPS. Maybe newer gear might just be usb but a SCADA techie I know said 
that USB to Serial dongles are often called for.

And not all nine pin ribbon connectors are equal so beware when buying. I only 
had one hardwired external serial connection. I had to do one with PCI card 
and another with internal connection via ribbon cable to nine pin connector 
in expansion slot. PCI card with two serial connectors was also problematic 
as in my case it seemed that prioritisation was always sometimes fixed to 
first device that used it and UPS would just not recognise either connector 
as a valid serial device, LOL!

AFAIC if you can access and afford expansion capacity buy it. 4 PCI slots are 
better than 3 and so on even if you don't think you'll need them.

And one last thing. I'll only buy AMD and I never had any problem with them. 
Things may have changed but it seems to me that Intel has never been very 
inclined towards Open Source and Linux compared to AMD and it often appears 
in the same nest with MS when it comes to things like "trusted computing" and 
other such "industry initiatives" I'll support any hardware vendor who openly 
supports my prefered system.

-- 
Cheers,

Rick Miles

Movement stopped is no movement,
and rest set in motion is no rest.

Written on Prickle-Prickle, the 62nd of The Aftermath, 3171 
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~rickfrm/