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#1
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When will legacy ports die?
Just wondering... When are the legacy ports on the PC going to dissappear?
I remember reading long ago that the PC'99 spec called for mainboards with no parallel, serial ports and no ISA slot. The PS/2 port is next to go. Well, here 2003 is more than half over and these ports still exist. I'm sure most folks would agree that the cost savings of dropping these ports would outweigh the need for them. CDR has replaced the floppy pretty much. Printers come with ethernet or USB. Anything new these days that can use serial can also use USB. Once these ports are gone, I can imagine a drop in PC size as well. Look at the mini ATX systems now. The back is covered by these legacy ports. ....just wondering. |
#2
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"Phrederik" wrote in message news:Wop5b.2371$Fe6.758@pd7tw2no... Just wondering... When are the legacy ports on the PC going to dissappear? I remember reading long ago that the PC'99 spec called for mainboards with no parallel, serial ports and no ISA slot. The PS/2 port is next to go. Well, here 2003 is more than half over and these ports still exist. I'm sure most folks would agree that the cost savings of dropping these ports would outweigh the need for them. CDR has replaced the floppy pretty much. Printers come with ethernet or USB. Anything new these days that can use serial can also use USB. Once these ports are gone, I can imagine a drop in PC size as well. Look at the mini ATX systems now. The back is covered by these legacy ports. ...just wondering. You still need floppy for SCSI and ATA controller cards, and just in case you need to get into DOS when running NT/2000/XP. Also for flashing GFX or motherboard BIOS. Not having a floppy sould still be a pain. And there already are a few high end boards without serial and parallel ports. e.g. http://www.abit.com.tw/abitweb/webjs...=AT7-MAX2%2FXP ss. |
#3
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Well, when will all motherboards that provide USB ports also have
embedded support within the BIOS so USB mice are usable during BIOS setup or before any OS gets loaded when then loads the driver to support that USB mouse? New port technology is great - as long as it is supported directly by the hardware, too. -- __________________________________________________ __________ ** Share with others. Post replies in the newsgroup. ** If present, remove all "-nix" from my email address. __________________________________________________ __________ "Phrederik" wrote in message news:Wop5b.2371$Fe6.758@pd7tw2no... Just wondering... When are the legacy ports on the PC going to dissappear? I remember reading long ago that the PC'99 spec called for mainboards with no parallel, serial ports and no ISA slot. The PS/2 port is next to go. Well, here 2003 is more than half over and these ports still exist. I'm sure most folks would agree that the cost savings of dropping these ports would outweigh the need for them. CDR has replaced the floppy pretty much. Printers come with ethernet or USB. Anything new these days that can use serial can also use USB. Once these ports are gone, I can imagine a drop in PC size as well. Look at the mini ATX systems now. The back is covered by these legacy ports. ...just wondering. |
#5
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On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 17:19:50 GMT, "Phrederik"
wrote: Just wondering... When are the legacy ports on the PC going to dissappear? I remember reading long ago that the PC'99 spec called for mainboards with no parallel, serial ports and no ISA slot. The PS/2 port is next to go. Well, here 2003 is more than half over and these ports still exist. I'm sure most folks would agree that the cost savings of dropping these ports would outweigh the need for them. CDR has replaced the floppy pretty much. Printers come with ethernet or USB. Anything new these days that can use serial can also use USB. Once these ports are gone, I can imagine a drop in PC size as well. Look at the mini ATX systems now. The back is covered by these legacy ports. ...just wondering. I wouldn't buy a board without them, there's very minimal space taken up and usually that much space is even excess due to the needed routing of other signal lines and the number of PCI slots. It would be reducing features and marketability with very little space savings. Note how those mini ATX boards are the smallest full-featured PC boards available, yet they still DO have space for the ports. Also consider that some of the other ports on the board might be removed instead (or rather the physical plug), like audio, USB, and firewire, since so often the user wants them in the front of the case, so having a pin-header for the versatility of using front-mount or a dongle may be better. Dave Dave |
#6
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"FuzionMan" wrote in message ... Most new system bios' allow booting from a CDROM using a CD you can burn with the startup files just like on a floppy. Then the CDROM would act as an A: or B: drive. Yeah, I know. But floppys are a lot more handy for that. It's not as though they cost much, and I have plenty of room in my tower cases. ss. |
#7
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"kony" wrote in message ... I wouldn't buy a board without them, there's very minimal space taken up and usually that much space is even excess due to the needed routing of other signal lines and the number of PCI slots. It would be reducing features and marketability with very little space savings. Note how those mini ATX boards are the smallest full-featured PC boards available, yet they still DO have space for the ports. Also consider that some of the other ports on the board might be removed instead (or rather the physical plug), like audio, USB, and firewire, since so often the user wants them in the front of the case, so having a pin-header for the versatility of using front-mount or a dongle may be better. I agree. As the motherboards' chipsets support the legacy ports, why not include them? With the massive economies of scale involved, it would cost more for the manufacturers to leave them out - floppy drives have a negative cost! I don't have any use for the parallel port anymore, but I'd still need at least one serial port, for console access to my router, or just in case I need to use my old USR hardware dial-up modem. And I'd rather not needlessly use a USB port for my keyboards, either. ss. |
#8
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There are still a lot of Printers out there that are Parallel. And it is
nice to have a PS2 Port because it just works better. More reliable. USB is often unreliable and unavailable as a boot device. No reason to replace PS2 Keyboard and Mouse it still works. Some Motherboards do not have Bootable USB Ports, because they use PS2 by default. I imagine they will be around for a while. We have been phasing in Serial ATA Hard Drives for about a Year or so and they have not replaced IDE drives yet. What is going on is that the hardware vendors refuse to to switch over. OEM's like Cheap hardware. As long as older hardware is cheaper it will be used. Customers have to force the change by refusing to buy older hardware. Until that happens, the market drives what is made. In reality it is the OEM's that buy most of the hardware. That is why we still use big bulky computers. OEM markets do not like to change, because it costs money. "Phrederik" wrote in message news:Wop5b.2371$Fe6.758@pd7tw2no... Just wondering... When are the legacy ports on the PC going to dissappear? I remember reading long ago that the PC'99 spec called for mainboards with no parallel, serial ports and no ISA slot. The PS/2 port is next to go. Well, here 2003 is more than half over and these ports still exist. I'm sure most folks would agree that the cost savings of dropping these ports would outweigh the need for them. CDR has replaced the floppy pretty much. Printers come with ethernet or USB. Anything new these days that can use serial can also use USB. Once these ports are gone, I can imagine a drop in PC size as well. Look at the mini ATX systems now. The back is covered by these legacy ports. ...just wondering. |
#9
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I do not know about most of you, but I can get much accomplished by just
hooking up a piece of equipment to the parallel and serial ports than the usb ports. First off, external serial modems are very easy to get going, and the parallel applications like PLIP and Parallel printers that are widely available are easy to get going when you need them in a pinch. Also, the serial and parallel ports are very convenient in communications. Also, many other external applications, such as eprom programmers and the such use the ports for connections. If you want to replace your 200 dollar programmer for a USB one if it exists, go ahead and get the 200 dollar USB one. If Parallel and Serial ports die in the next year, I'll be hurting and so will many industries. |
#10
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"William" wrote in message news I do not know about most of you, but I can get much accomplished by just hooking up a piece of equipment to the parallel and serial ports than the usb ports. First off, external serial modems are very easy to get going, and the parallel applications like PLIP and Parallel printers that are widely available are easy to get going when you need them in a pinch. Also, the serial and parallel ports are very convenient in communications. Also, many other external applications, such as eprom programmers and the such use the ports for connections. If you want to replace your 200 dollar programmer for a USB one if it exists, go ahead and get the 200 dollar USB one. If Parallel and Serial ports die in the next year, I'll be hurting and so will many industries. How many folks actually have Eprom burners? Are you so poor that you can't spend a few dollars for a parallel port or serial port card? Maybe all PC's should have an eprom programmer built into the rear panel? The number of folks who actually NEED these ports is small. I can see a major savings by manufacturers if they could eliminate the silicon and driver IC's that parallel ports, serial ports and ISA slots require. |
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