On Mon, 1 Nov 2004, Wouter van Ooijen wrote:

>>> USB is a cash cow.
>>     And that's bad because...?
>
> I must agree with Andrew that USB is (nearly always) far easier to use
> that serial or parallel. OTOH when it does *not* work I don't have a
> clue why, with serial I could often get it to work.
>
> OTOH the fee for a USB ID is a significant hurdle for low-cost product
> development. The easiest way out is to buy an FT chip and use their
> vendor ID. I would love a company that re-selled USB IDs in small
> quantities!

As an alternative, how about usb silicon makers offering a 'ride' on their 
id (or on specific id's they's purchase for this specific purpose), for a 
few pennies more. E.g. you buy a Cypress USB client controller cpu and you 
have the option to get an id and uid from Cypress (you share the id with 
many others but the device id is uniquely guaranteed by the database 
consolidated application process), for a few $, through a web form and 
PayPal payment. If there would be enough demand this scheme would pay for 
itself very fast imho. But is there enough demand ? And what about 
liability ? I.e. if something with a id from Cypress f.ex. would catch 
fire, who would be liable ?

Peter
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