Well Olin,
You may note that I never said "RS-232" in my reply.
Async serial ports are not seen anymore.
Async serial communications will not be going away.
I am talking about aysnc that may be totally  buried inside USB  
protocols.
So I think you and I are talking about different things.
Gus


> On Oct 5, 2009, at 6:41 AM, Olin Lathrop wrote:
>
> NOPE9 wrote:
>> I think just about everyone will suggest you communicate using a USB
>> to Serial adapter .
>
> Count me as one "everyone" that doesn't.
>
>> It is a great solution.
>
> For small values of "great".  Big drawbacks with serial ports is  
> that the
> user has to know which one a device is connected to.  With a USB  
> serial port
> it's even worse because you don't know without some digging which  
> COM port
> number the operating decided to assign a particular adapter.  Another
> drawback is that the system doesn't know the list of devices  
> connected to
> it.  A app can't look around for devices it knows how to handle, or  
> be run
> automatically when its particular device type is connected.
>
>> Async serial communication is supported by nearly every development
>> language plus
>
> True, although this could be explained because only a few years ago  
> that was
> how it was done.
>
>> you find it on lots of devices.
>
> Not anymore, at least counting newly designed devices, not existing  
> ones.
>
>> Aysnc serial communication is not obsolete and will be viable for the
>> next 20 years [ I think ] .
>
> It will likely be around in niches for a long time yet to come, but  
> it is
> basically obsolete already for mainstream purposes.  Can you show  
> even a
> single mass market device produced today that has RS-232  
> connectivity but
> not USB?

Do I win a prize for doing this ?
>
> Printers are a good example.  20 years ago printers came with a  
> parallel
> port and often a serial port.  Then USB came along and it was at first
> added, then the serial port was dropped, and now the parallel port  
> is gone
> too.
>
>

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