> I'll admit I'm kind of surprised at all of the users sticking up for RS-232. > I would've thought Abdul would be safe in abandoning his internal RS-232 > data pathway between the Atmel and FTDI chip. What are some examples of > RS-232 hosts that need to talk to GPIB test equipment? Old/retired laptops > being used as dumb terminals? Legacy DOS apps that don't have any form of > USB support? Both? > > -- john, KE5FX
RS232 allows the user to convert to many other interfaces. There are serial-USB converters, ethernet-serial converters, GPIB-serial converters, wireless-serial modems, fiber-serial converters, serial data loggers, etc. You can be close or hundreds of feet away. You can use a full PC or a tiny PIC. So it gives you a lot of options when you have a device that talks RS232. If a device is USB-only you pretty much have to just plug it into a wintel PC, install their OS-dependent software, and take what you're given. I'll give you a recent example. I have a bunch of AC power meters in my lab (model: Watts Up PRO) that have RS232 output and I wrote software that logs and plots the data. A while back I picked up cheap serial-ethernet converters and now I get all the same data over my house LAN. If these were USB devices I'd be stuck with their software, their logs, their plots, and have to locate a Windows PC near each meter. Ironically, like Prologix, the company that makes these AC meters also just "went USB" so this flexibility is now lost. Another example is GPS receivers. How would it be if they only came with USB interfaces? Consumers wouldn't care, they might even prefer it, but consider why it would drive us engineers crazy. /tvb _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list [email protected] https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
