> unhappy with the environment (IE Dongles) and wont support > vendors who use them I know serial and parallel ports have pretty much disappeared, but do you think PC hardware may have settled down now ? "For the foreseeable future" is not forever of course, and OS's change too ["they are improved" ;-))) ]. Will USB be around longer than serial ? Who can say -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist