Time to dump Parallel, Serial PS/2?

Dave Baumann

Dave Baumann

Gamerscore Wh...
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I remember when USB first appeared thinking "I'm never going to get this many devices that will fill up the 4 ports I had on my then PC, even though I was keen to seek USB devices as opposed to other legacy devices as much as possible. I can't think that I've had serial or parallel enabled in my BIOS for many years now, and with the removal of my previous keyboard all requirements for PS/2 have been removed from the PC - however, its now left me with the situation where I am juggling the 8 USB output ports available on the motherboard because I now have more USB devices than I do ports.

Intel made some noise about making legacy free devices some time ago, and I'm surprised they haven't gone further with it already. Anyone else think that its time to remove Serial, Parallel and even PS/2 from chipsets and motherboards in favour support for 12 or 16 USB ports?
 
No - it was time to do that in, like, 2000.
Though USB isn't exactly the best solution, the legacy stuff should have been killed dead ages ago.
 
anaqer said:
No - it was time to do that in, like, 2000.
Though USB isn't exactly the best solution, the legacy stuff should have been killed dead ages ago.
Click to expand...

agreed....i have 6 USB ports here and its bloody annyoing to shift between different devices.....12-20 USB ports is needed.
 
DaveBaumann said:
I remember when USB first appeared thinking "I'm never going to get this many devices that will fill up the 4 ports I had on my then PC, even though I was keen to seek USB devices as opposed to other legacy devices as much as possible. I can't think that I've had serial or parallel enabled in my BIOS for many years now, and with the removal of my previous keyboard all requirements for PS/2 have been removed from the PC - however, its now left me with the situation where I am juggling the 8 USB output ports available on the motherboard because I now have more USB devices than I do ports.

Intel made some noise about making legacy free devices some time ago, and I'm surprised they haven't gone further with it already. Anyone else think that its time to remove Serial, Parallel and even PS/2 from chipsets and motherboards in favour support for 12 or 16 USB ports?
Click to expand...

Didn't Abit do this with their early MAX range of boards, they killed off PS/2, Serial and Parallel ports only to bring back PS/2 in later versions of the boards? I think their were problems with USB keyboards and accessing certain BIOSes. I too was tempted, and replaced everything with USB versions (including external modems, Mouse and keyboard) but it never seemed to take off with anyone else.
Incidentally I have 10 USB ports with my Asus A8N-SLI, and still have to use a TetraHub for more!

P69

Edit: Yep it started with the IT7-Max:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=Mjkz
 
Yes it looks that for reliability legacy ports are king, no need to kill them... they can add on more real estate or you can but a PCI extension or a hub for USB's... whatever is your choice... it's not like you cannot expand if you need to...

For me, leave legacy stuff forever, as it always works, will USB be ever so reliable - I guess it will, but I don't think it is right now.
 
You could always get a usb hub. I think you can find PCs without physical parallel and ps/2 ports, but no chipset that removes them completely.

Seems like an ideal time to start killing off legacy stuff though, pci express will hopefully end PCI and AGP, hypertransport bus and integrated memory controller end seperate northbridges and other memory buses(for athlons at least, but say no to vtol and pci bus for integrated devices) and....what other legacies can be ended? How about wired internet, IDE, and DDR?
 
Phantom69 said:
I think their were problems with USB keyboards and accessing certain BIOSes.
Click to expand...
Yer thats still a problem. :? My PC crashed the other day and I had to get a PS/2 keyboard before I could move the selection to safe start in the Windows start menu. (Funny enough the F8 key worked so I could access the menu)
This is on a Asrock K8 MB and a logitech USB keyboard, so its rather new. o_O
 
Fox5 said:
You could always get a usb hub.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have a few, but I'm a bit of a connection snob and don't want to use it unless I absolutely need to.

Tokelil said:
Phantom69 said:
I think their were problems with USB keyboards and accessing certain BIOSes.
Click to expand...
Yer thats still a problem. :? My PC crashed the other day and I had to get a PS/2 keyboard before I could move the selection to safe start in the Windows start menu. (Funny enough the F8 key worked so I could access the menu)
This is on a Asrock K8 MB and a logitech USB keyboard, so its rather new. o_O
Click to expand...

Well, that particulr problem wouldn't be a problem if PS/2 wasn't an option in chipsets, since this would be new boards and MB vendors would need to use BIOS's that work with USB!
 
Fox5 said:
How about wireless keyboards and mice? Is bluetooth available for desktops?
Click to expand...

Yes it is. There is the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX for Bluetooth. This is the keyboard setup I'm using right now. The range is remarkable. It connects up to the PC with USB and PS/2. The mouse recharging/docking station also acts as the bluetooth broadcasting hub. The PS/2 connection is only needed for the keyboard to function in bios.
 
BRiT said:
Fox5 said:
How about wireless keyboards and mice? Is bluetooth available for desktops?
Click to expand...

Yes it is. There is the Logitech Cordless Desktop MX for Bluetooth. This is the keyboard setup I'm using right now. The range is remarkable. It connects up to the PC with USB and PS/2. The mouse recharging/docking station also acts as the bluetooth broadcasting hub. The PS/2 connection is only needed for the keyboard to function in bios.
Click to expand...

Can other bluetooth devices connect to it besides the keyboard and mouse? Wireless doesn't solve the problems of not enough connections if each device requires a docking station plugged into a usb port.
 
Dave i ran out of usb ports although i had 8 ( 4 on board , 2 on case , 2 on a connection with the ports in a pci slot ) so i gota fan controller that had another 2 . Now i have one left which is soon to be gone with my video camera .
 
shame on you. Leave the poor serial, parallel and even the lonely ps/2 alone. They still have their place in todays usb/firewire world. Just one example: Can you print from DOS with printscreen with your fancy usb printer?

epic
 
epicstruggle said:
shame on you. Leave the poor serial, parallel and even the lonely ps/2 alone. They still have their place in todays usb/firewire world. Just one example: Can you print from DOS with printscreen with your fancy usb printer?

epic
Click to expand...

Do we really need DOS? I don't think Windows XP even allows you to boot into DOS anymore, and 64bit Windows should completely remove all DOS support.

If DOS is a must to keep how about adding USB support to it, and maybe even updating it to make it a fairly modern OS?
 
Fox5 said:
epicstruggle said:
shame on you. Leave the poor serial, parallel and even the lonely ps/2 alone. They still have their place in todays usb/firewire world. Just one example: Can you print from DOS with printscreen with your fancy usb printer?

epic
Click to expand...

Do we really need DOS? I don't think Windows XP even allows you to boot into DOS anymore, and 64bit Windows should completely remove all DOS support.

If DOS is a must to keep how about adding USB support to it, and maybe even updating it to make it a fairly modern OS?
Click to expand...
heretic!!! :devilish:

hehe, ive had a few projects where i hacked devices that comunicated over serial, doing it over USB was a lot more complicated. Long live serial.

epic
 
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