Who loves it that IBM left Serial/Paralell ports on

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Navck · #1 Post by **Navck** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:09 pm

But miss good old fashion floppys?
I don't know why, most notebook makers replace those with 12 USB ports + 6 firewire ports and an all in one card reader. Its kinda weird.
Well for consumers its handy, they always need those for their Christmas USB trees/Etc. But I don't see the point of using "THAT" many things

#2 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:24 pm

You know, I really can't remember ever using my serial port except maybe once with an old mouse and the parralell port gets used very rarely because the low price of CD-r's has really killed off most of my need for the zip drive, in fact, I don't think I've even used the zip in about a year or so but still, on the rare occasion that zip drive is needed, I am very glad to have a parralell port.

Navck · #3 Post by **Navck** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:39 pm

Paralell - Good for old printers
Serial - I wish I had PS/2 instead for mouse...

#4 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 5:17 pm

Yeah, not too much use anymore. I can live without them.

But I did have a Nextel i60c cell phone that I was using as a modem. Originally I was using a serial port connection cable. Eventually that cable went bad, and a coworker of mine had a USB cable for the same phone, so I bought it from him. I found that the serial connection worked somewhat more reliably than the USB connection. I never had a hang with the serial connection. But with the USB connection, I sometimes had to reboot after a hang, to be able to connect again. This was on a 600E running W2K.

So the serial port may still have some use for these types of things.

Now I use a PC card EDGE modem in my T42. It results in a much faster connection than the my old setup had.

#5 Post by **jdhurst** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 6:32 pm

There is legacy product (Radio programming software and other such goodies) that connect with a serial port. Some of this stuff is so old, the newest OS you can use is Windows 98 or earlier. So you put it in a VMware machine on a T machine with USB 2 and no serial port. Then you find that Windows 98 can't use USB 2 (and never will) and so the USB to serial adapter doesn't work.

So while diminishing in need, some people still need serial ports and I (for one) wish they had not removed them. I don't need them, but I have clients who do. Others here have spoken of the same need.
... JD Hurst

Toe · #6 Post by **Toe** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:11 pm

Used a serial cable to connect to switch that has having a bad day last week....I stood there as my boss looked for the serial port on his new dell, then busted out the good 'ol T23......

-Toe

Navck · #7 Post by **Navck** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:53 pm

And thats why I rather have 1 serial port rather than 12 USB ports for those useless "USB X MAS TREE" things

#8 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:02 pm

The only things I use nowadays that utilize serial port are my PalmPilot Pro and my Hewlett Packard 48SX calculator. Those two devices are the older than dirt, the Pilot has a USR logo and dates to 1997, the HP48SX dates to '92, yet I'm yet to find a device in their class that can last longer or be more reliable.

Navck · #9 Post by **Navck** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:05 pm

Heheh, I own a Palm 1000 here
Also noted - All of the newer Palm Pilots have a MTBF of 6 months. My Palm Zire 71 died after its warranty, I lost many Palm 4s as well.. IBM is still good with quality however, and if they're not the warranty takes over (Unlike 90 day laptop warrantys)

#10 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 10:12 pm

Yeah, no permanent batteries to die, no CCFL to die out (though it does have a nice green EL strip in the display for night use), no aluminum to bend, and the thing can be disasembled in under a minute, not to mention every part is replacable. I've dropped my PalmPilot Pro so many times and so far, I've only lost the speaker (because I goofed on a rebuild when cleaning the thing.) I'm probably the ONLY one to say this but that one meg is actually enough storage for all my information. Still, I will admit that the only reason I don't have a Tungsten C or a Treo 650 is because of my wallet.

The HP48SX is a different story though, I can be a millionare and the HP48SX or GX will always be my calc of choice. The only calculator ever made that's better than the 48SX is the 48GX and there is NOTHING better than the GX. Those two calcs are also cool as hell. They can do almost anything it seems. Much better than any TI I've ever used It's only flaw is that my teachers are also familiar with it and will not let me use it on any tests. Since it was designed for science and engineering, unlie the education oriented TI's, HP felt no need to lack on features. This thing has it all, infrared, algebra solver, expansion ports, yadda yadda yadda.

#11 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:41 am

AlphaKilo470 wrote:The only things I use nowadays that utilize serial port are my PalmPilot Pro and my Hewlett Packard 48SX calculator. Those two devices are the older than dirt, the Pilot has a USR logo and dates to 1997, the HP48SX dates to '92, yet I'm yet to find a device in their class that can last longer or be more reliable.

I have a HP200LX that I am rather fond off. I can run many DOS applications from it. It has a PC card slot, and I have a couple flash memory cards for it. I have the entire text of the Bible on one card, that allows me to search for words, phrases, or scriptures. I have WordPerfect 3.0 for DOS also on one of the cards. The HP200LX has a full (miniaturized) keyboard, and a numeric keypad. Built in is Lotus 123, Pocket Quicken, and HP Calculator. The calculator does TVM calculations, conversions, equation solver & plotter, among other things. All in all, it comes loaded with about 2 dozen applets. It uses a serial port for syncing with a PC, and for printing. I have an old HP Deskjet 500 that has both serial and parallel ports which I use to print from my HP200LX.

To be honest, the HP doesn't get as much use as it used to. These days, my main use for it is to store all my passwords that I use when I go online. I do still use it for other things however. It was quite the little device when it came out, and it was on the market for several years. I used to subscribe to a magazine that was in publication for about 5 years, dedicated to making the most use of the HP200LX.

#12 Post by **K. Eng** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:48 am

I don't mind the absence of a serial port on the T40... the Parallel port has come in very handy though as I still work with a few old laser printers that are Parallel port only.

Navck · #13 Post by **Navck** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:36 pm

I'm pretty thankful they left the Parael ports in, I still can use my ultra old printers, and weird stuff (Some lego mindstorm kit)

pphilipko · #14 Post by **pphilipko** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:31 pm

I use it for my antique laser printer.

Torque · #15 Post by **Torque** » Sun Jul 31, 2005 2:06 pm

CNC machines.

doppelfish · #16 Post by **doppelfish** » Mon Aug 01, 2005 8:12 am

Navck wrote:But miss good old fashion floppys?

There's three machines I use on a daily basis. All of them have floppy drives. None of these drives has ever been used. And my A30p is the newest of the three, btw. And re: serial ports, I recently had the pleasure of running ppp over a null-modem cable, as if it were 1995 again. Solid 6KBps. Yay serial port! But they aren't perfect either.

cheers,
--fish

mandrsn1 · #17 Post by **mandrsn1** » Thu Aug 04, 2005 10:47 am

I use the parallel port for hardware license keys for some software.

yukit · #18 Post by **yukit** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 2:52 am

Never had to use a physical floppy on my Thinkpad except for some diags software from IBM update. I just ignored it.

I do have a need to use a serial port to control my Sony CD changer unit, but my T40 does not come with one. I use an USB-to-serial adapter.

BigWarpGuy · #19 Post by **BigWarpGuy** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 12:27 pm

>I don't mind the absence of a serial port on the T40...
>the Parallel port has come in very handy though as
> I still work with a few old laser printers that

I have seen a usb cable that connects a centronics/parallel printer to an USB port on the computer.

are Parallel port only.

Bob Collins · #20 Post by **Bob Collins** » Fri Aug 05, 2005 11:31 pm

Serial port is handy to link up to a Cisco router to config it. Can live without the parallel port tho.

#21 Post by **carbon_unit** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 7:48 pm

Today I was at a customers shop working on his industrial equipment and I needed a serial connection and a floppy. I sure was missing my old T23 at that moment.

Navck · #22 Post by **Navck** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:13 pm

Apparently the new Z series has become a Fakepad/Consumertop. No more paralell.

#23 Post by **Kyocera** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:20 pm

I definately need the parallel port to troubleshoot those old HP lasers, it's hard to believe how many people are still using the HP LJ4, probably the best printer ever made. And we also need the serial port to program new cash registers. I've seen some customers with those USB trees with two or three printers, mouse, palm, keyboard, zip, all plugged into a little laptop! I'm in the Printer/MFP business and more and more of the new print systems are losing the parallel port.

#24 Post by **jdhurst** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 8:23 pm

From time-to-time, and for clients, I use the floppy drive (I carry one in the car), the serial port (I have to have a USB adapter), and the parallel port (my T41 has one). ... JD Hurst

#25 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 9:52 pm

Two things that have really been godsends for me at this time are the floppy drive and the infrared port. Floppies: nothing better for Word documents and PowerPoints. Infrared: very usefull if you have two or more laptops with it and you have Office documents to transfer though anything bigger will go really slow. The IR port is also really nice to have when your school has a few infrared enabled printers.

#26 Post by **Kyocera** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 10:40 pm

Infrared: very usefull if you have two or more laptops with it and you have Office documents to transfer though anything bigger will go really slow

Can you transfer data from machine to machine this way or am I misunderstanding?

doppelfish · #27 Post by **doppelfish** » Thu Sep 29, 2005 6:29 am

Kyocera wrote:Can you transfer data from machine to machine this way or am I misunderstanding?

You can establish an ad-hoc connection, and send/receive whatever files there are on each side. Fast enough when one laptop is hooked up the LCD projector and another machine has the presentation on it, or when the guy next to you asks for that text document/spread sheet/whatever. Works for holiday photos, too (boring meetings only).

cheers,
-- fish

MobileGuru · #28 Post by **MobileGuru** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:29 am

Navck wrote:Apparently the new Z series has become a Fakepad/Consumertop. No more paralell.

More and more models are going to ship without that dinoport .. it's all a question of time and planar real estate really.

#29 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 3:01 pm

Newer laptops are being sold without parralell ports among other legacy ports for the same reason commercial planes no longer have propellers. The mojority of the market is moving on and it's no longer as practical to have the old parts.

As long as I still ahve a way of using the floppy and possibly have the option of infrered, I'm pretty much set.

no_man · #30 Post by **no_man** » Fri Sep 30, 2005 5:08 pm

I use mine on the T30 and with the corporate Dell, for excellent and cheap printing (around $.03 per page) with my HP LaserJets, also, around $30. will buy a converter (USB port parallel connector).

Who loves it that IBM left Serial/Paralell ports on

Who loves it that IBM left Serial/Paralell ports on

Re: Who loves it that IBM left Serial/Paralell ports on

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