My former employer, LinuxCertified, sells laptops, and almost all of them have
proper serial ports built in. They do your choice of linux (from a list of a
handful distributions) and optionally dual-boot at cost of windows. 

http://linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html

- Marcel

"John J. McDonough" <mcd@is-sixsigma.com> wrote:

> I recently got a new T43.  My T21 was getting a little long in the tooth,
> and I was needing to buy a rather expensive program pretty soon, so that
> pushed my new laptop schedule up a bit since I didn't want to invest $1100
> on the old laptop.  (Well, my original schedule was to retire the T21 over a
> year ago, but with a new disk it was still doing the job, even if I did get
> razzed about the old clunker on some consulting assignments.)
> 
> Anyway, like practically all the laptops out there, the T43 has no serial
> port, so I was resigned to doing my PIC-EL work on the desktop.  Not the end
> of the world, but inconvenient.
> 
> Since my accountant is on me to spend money, I went the long dollar for the
> fancy dock (Dock III) as well.  The dock is bigger than it should be, but it
> does have a serial port.  I sort of suspected, however, that is was simply a
> USB derived serial port that wouldn't work with my PIC-EL (which is
> basically a SERPIC clone).
> 
> Well, I *finally* got all the software moved over from the old laptop and
> today I took a shot at programming a PIC through the serial port ... and the
> damned thing worked.  I am one happy camper.  I do have an ICD-2 and a NoPPP
> so it's not like the PIC-EL is my only PIC programmer, but I want to do the
> Elmer experiments exactly as my students do, so it's really good news that
> the T43's serial port is a real one.
> 
> Before you go running out to get a T43 be warned that this is the high
> priced spread.  I insisted on the little eraser thing (I'm annoyed that I
> still get a touch pad but at least I can turn the thing off), and I really
> like the keyboard light.  Both of those seem to be IBM-only features.  IBM
> does have cheaper/faster laptops that I think work with the Dock III, but
> they are big and heavy which is not something I wanted since I lug the thing
> around a lot.
> 
> But if you want a laptop to work with your serial programmer, there are
> still alternatives.
> 
> --McD




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