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Legacy-Free PCs
JeffM2001 writes "InformationWeek is running a story by Fred Langa which gives an overview of the ways to create a true-Legacy-free computer. Finally we can have a PC not based on twenty year old technology." Update: 04/07 17:34 GMT by T : Pages past the first one of this article seem just to loop; here's the printable version, which has the whole article in one go.
the link to the article is broken and should be THIS
The Code Ninja is swift with his tool, precise in his delivery, and deadly accurate in his execution.
Interfacing to a UART is trivial. Much more trivial than with USB
Standard serial ports don't have a power supply with a well-specified current budget (you have to use wierd parasitic power supplies that don't always work on laptop serial ports).
Serial ports require negative voltages (more workarounds with switched-capacitor inverters).
Serial ports don't have a reliable way to detect plug and unplug events.
Serial ports don't have a standard way to identify the type of device plugged in.
Serial ports cannot be expanded and chained with hubs.
Serial ports require an interrupt per byte and are connected on the legacy ISA bus - each I/O cycle takes nearly a microsecond (thousands of cycles on a modern PC!). A USB controller is a bus-mastering PCI device with a scheduler driven by table data structures.
Serial ports are slower. Sure, USB 1.1 is not terribly fast at 12mbps but it was a design compromise to keep it cheap enough so you can build a mouse for less than $1 material cost.
Serial ports don't have isochronous transfer modes for timing-sensitive data like audio and modem signals.
A DB9 connector is less friendly than the USB connector. I hate those retaining screws.
A DB9 connector is not designed with recessed pins for better ESD protection.
A DB9 connector is not designed with data pins recessed farther than the power and ground pins for safe hot insertion and removal.
Serial ports use an antiquated notion of DCE and DTE to determine connector gender and everyone generally screws it up so gender changers are occasionally necessary.
Yes. A UART interface is trivial. Except when you have to find out why it's not working (oops, it's disabled or set up in the BIOS as an IRDA port).
Serial ports don't have predefined device classes so a variety of devices can use a standard driver.
Sure, all this comes at a certain price and the Microsoft implementation of USB PnP and standard device class drivers leaves something do be desired but it's generally an improvement over UARTs.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.