| JP Vossen on 18 Oct 2010 23:31:46 -0700 |
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At dinner last night after PLUG W we were talking about the difficulty of getting newer computers, esp. laptops, with serial or parallel ports. Those ports can be important for controlling certain devices (notably CNC devices, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNC). And the USB<-->serial adapters do NOT work for CNC due to various timing issues, according to...Eric, I think it was? The short answer looks like, lots of people [1] still sell PCI Parallel Adapter and PCI serial Adapter (and combo) cards. Not so useful on a laptop, but if you have a PCI slot, you're golden. http://www.provantage.com/scripts/search.dll?SEC=~IOSPA&A1=3188&V1=PCI http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=512 Longer answer: I didn't look that hard, but I didn't find any current laptops with either.I thought that my Atom-based System76 Meerkat NetTop has a serial and a parallel port, and I was right. Unfortunately, the NEW one does not: http://www.system76.com/product_info.php?cPath=27&products_id=91 None of the S76 laptops have either.All of the System76 servers do have 1 serial port, but I didn't find any parallel ports. http://www.system76.com/index.php?cPath=29 A couple of ZA Reason servers had a serial port too: http://zareason.com/shop/ZR-4110.html http://zareason.com/shop/ZR-4330.html http://zareason.com/shop/ZR-6220.html http://zareason.com/shop/ZU-4110.htmlFinally, my old backup server was a Synertron Twister, and they still sell some stuff with serial & parallel ports. They have fanless units and CF-CARDs as well, which is perfect for high contaminate, high vibration environments, like mounded on the side of a CNC rig. Most of these are available with up to 4 serial ports: http://synertrontech.com/products/Embedded%20Systems/embedded_systems.htm e.g., http://synertrontech.com/products/Embedded%20Boards/cv_860c.htmThis is the only one that claimed to have a parallel port, but the picture doesn't show it: http://synertrontech.com/products/Embedded%20Systems/es_mini_cool_box.html Some of the boards have what looks like a parallel port, but from reading the specs it may be a serial port... Like: http://synertrontech.com/products/Embedded%20Boards/cv_866c.htm Anyone else have any ideas? JP ______________________[1] I still have a StarTech ISA Parallel Adapter Card, and it's the same distinctive triangle shape as the newer PCI ones. Funny. ----------------------------|:::======|------------------------------- JP Vossen, CISSP |:::======| http://bashcookbook.com/ My Account, My Opinions |=========| http://www.jpsdomain.org/ ----------------------------|=========|------------------------------- "Microsoft Tax" = the additional hardware & yearly fees for the add-on software required to protect Windows from its own poorly designed and implemented self, while the overhead incidentally flattens Moore's Law. ___________________________________________________________________________ Philadelphia Linux Users Group -- http://www.phillylinux.org Announcements - http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-announce General Discussion -- http://lists.phillylinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
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