One of the still-plentiful, proven, and inexpensive Edgeport boxes (USB to 4 or 8 RS-232) would seem to obselence-proof your station.
73, geo - n4ua On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 8:48 AM, John Ragle <[email protected]> wrote: > It is very rare that one can find a modern PC desktop that comes with 1 > or more RS-232 serial ports, just as it is becoming more and more > difficult to find stock desktops with expansion slots on the MoBo. > Laptops, at least newer than my ancient IBM Thinkpad, are even less > likely to be equipped with RS-232 ports. This puts hams in an invidious > position -- either use some old clunker of a desktop that came with > RS-232 equipment, or find an expansion board that will plug into the > MoBo of a moderately old tower, or use a USB-->RS-232 converter and go > modern. > > Regarding the various items of Elecraft equipment, the choice between > USB and RS-232 seems to have had very little to do with relative merits. > It is not "which one is better?" but "which one is more suitable?" > Apparently a substantial fraction of the brethren use superannuated > desktops because this is a reasonable financial option. Another fraction > of us use modern-day laptops, even though they promise half the > performance at twice the price of a modern desktop. When the choice is > between USB-->RS-232 conversion and RS-232-->USB conversion, the former > is more readily available (the USB->RS-232 converters) than the latter. > Again, this is just a marketing matter. > > Unfortunately, not all USB-->RS-232 converters are usable; some are > "more equal than others" (apologies to George Orwell). A lot of the > previous fuming and fussing over this topic has concerned specific chip > sets and manufacturers of these converters. This is where the archived > to-and-fro is of most utility. At first I was also a bit put off to > discover that Elecraft relied on what I thought of as antiquated > hardware, but in retrospect, I have gone over to the dark side and > embraced the DB-9. I have used Firewire, USB, and RS-232, and find I > much prefer the latter. I am fortunate to have a desktop with expansion > slots, though in a bit of a quandary planning for the succession. > > John Ragle -- W1ZI > > -- > > Sent from my lovely old Dell XPS 420 > > ______________________________________________________________ > 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 > ______________________________________________________________ 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
