17 Oct
2006
17 Oct
'06
3:17 p.m.
Jay West wrote:
Pat wrote....
I wonder why the original IBM PC didn't include it? I mean, typical machines
of that era relied on a serial terminal for control - yet IBM made it pretty
much compulsory to have a video board of some description (even if it was just
MDA). Sure, they probably never foresaw the PC as a server class system, but
given what everyone else was doing at the time I'm surprised they ruled the
feature out (at least without a BIOS rewrite).
OK, so you can redirect stuff under DOS (or another OS) once booted, but that
still means that on typical PC machines you get no feedback on the boot
process until the OS has control...
Almost all the machines we have at work, which I
admin, have
RS-232 console ports....
That's true, most of your name brand data-center
class Intel based (and
others) have full bios support for serial console. However, those are
not the typical machines a consumer buys. Just try finding a laptop these days that has a serial
port. You won't
find much (if any). I daresay more than half the consumer grade PC's for
the home do not have serial ports on them either nowdays.
That's why I still have this old Thinkpad - at least it has serial and
parallel built in (and USB for when I have to use it), even if it is a bit
long in the tooth.
[I'm struggling to avoid a general rant about USB at this point]
RS232 as far as a general purpose consumer interface
is dead.
In a way, I suppose it doesn't fit for a lot of devices beyond things like
terminals and modems and simple, low-speed stuff like UPS status/control. Most
consumer devices are just too bandwidth-hungry for serial - but that's what
parallel ports and SCSI were for; we didn't *need* yet another interface
standard...
Makes me wonder how well SCSI would have fared had it been hot-pluggable from
the start, as that seems to be the main benefit of USB (even if the Microsoft
guys can't seem to get the software side of it right!)
cheers
Jules
--
Put your viking helmet on
Spread that mayonnaise on the lawn
Don't you know it's Weasel Stomping Day