USB is also a point to point system. But worse, it's master/slave too. At least with serial both ends are equal; with USB one end must be in charge. That's why devices can't talk to each other, only to a central system.
If you want multiple connections you need FireWire (or IEEE 1394). All devices are the same priority and you can daisy-chain a number of them together. Designed for sharing multiple gizmos on one set of wires. Fast too. Or implement synchronous RS232 with a poll/response protocol like BISync or U100/UTS400. But that would mean implementing all the pins of the RS232 standard wouldn't it? All 25 pins rather than the cut-down version on PCs? My gripe? People refer to it as RS232 when the 9-pin system on a PC doesn't implement it. Where's the B channel, the clocks, ring indicator, remote loopback, secondary RTS and CTS, the rate selector? Not there so it's not a true RS232 connector. It's an IBM 9-pin serial instead!!! <high horse: OFF> Sorry if there are any typos, this is sent from my iPad Andy, G8TQH Ex-senior instructor comms and terminals; Sperry Univac Europe. > On 15 Sep 2014, at 19:12, Bill Turner <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm not a computer expert so maybe this is a simplistic question. > > In the future, wouldn't it be better to abandon serial ports and go to > USB for data communicating between radio/computer/amplifier and other > equipment? > > With USB, isn't it possible to write drivers that can work with > multiple equipment connections and avoid the "collision" problem? > > Or is it not that simple? Is there a better solution? > > 73, Bill W6WRT > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > Message delivered to [email protected] ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
