20 Jul
2010
20 Jul
'10
12:59 p.m.
[RS232]
I readily concede that for many things it is, I am
sure, a great interface.
It has the great advantage, for me, that it's avaialble on almost all my
machines, from handheld calcualtors to minicomputers, from machines made
in the 1970s to machines made after 2000.
Personally, me, I'm a software man. I just about could solder up an
RS232 D25 or DB9 cable in the 1980s; I've not tried since. I am
You meana DE9, surely?
strictly a board-level sort of chap when it comes to
hardware and
really dislike trying to fiddle around with chips, making cables etc.
I usually break things.
I was once told 'The designer who never blew a chip is a bad designer. he
never designed anything' :-)
More seriously, skill comes with practice -- lots of it. I don't worry
about soldering up a D-series connector because I've been soldering them
for 25 years or more. I do worry about reocnfiguring software because I
fear I could end up erasing the master disks, or worse. Doubtless If I;d
spnt 25 years doing software it would be the other way round.
I am looking for a serial interface for my newly-acquire Amstrad PCW
to turn it into a terminal for my VAXstation, and possibly even my
Linux box. The thought of making up the cables and troubleshooting the
connection fills me with dread.
Until quite recently you could get various cofiguration/troubleshooting
aids. The simple DB25 plug-to-socket adapter with LEDs monitoring the
important lines is very useful. A breakout box (which lets you reconnect
any of the wirtes using switches and patch leads is useful too. A full
datacomms tester (Tektronix and HP made some nice ones) is OTT for most
peole but...
Alas this stuff is getting hard to find now. Much of it can be made, but
if you're not happy wiring up a cable, I doubt you'd want to make a
breakoput box from scratch.
/For me/ - and, it must be said, in the mainstream home/office
computer world in which I work - serial is a fading memory now.
I hate to point out the obvious, but this is classiccmp, not the
'mainstream homw/office computer world'...
Parallel ports too. I don't think I've seen a
new parallel device in a
decade, either; a last few legacy devices are hanging around but
they're mostly being pensioned off now.
Mind you, saying that, at the UK VCF I saw BBC Micros being equipped
with USB ports. Apparently it is entirely doable on '80s 8-bit kit,
and a lot more use, as well as easier to use, than serial is, these
days.
For what USB devices? There are things like the Vinculum chips which let
you add USB memory sticks as storage to just about any system. While
(IIRC) you can use them to talk to other USB peripherals too, you'd have
to write the necessary drivers. And the BBC micro is very short of memory
for something like this. Nto to mention the fact that many of the
manufacturers of the more specialised USB peripherals [1] have their own
custom drivers for Windows and don't release the specs to let you write
drivers for other OSes or machines.
[1] Which are the oens I'd be more interested in. I am quite happy to use
a classic printer with my Beeb (or transfer the data to a PC for
printing), I would not want to use a USB printer on that machine. But I
might well want to use a USB-hosted data acquisition unit, since no
classic altenative exists.
-tony