When will legacy ports die?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phrederik
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Phrederik

Just wondering... When are the legacy ports on the PC going to dissappear?

I remember reading long ago that the PC'99 spec called for mainboards with
no parallel, serial ports and no ISA slot. The PS/2 port is next to go.

Well, here 2003 is more than half over and these ports still exist.

I'm sure most folks would agree that the cost savings of dropping these
ports would outweigh the need for them. CDR has replaced the floppy pretty
much. Printers come with ethernet or USB. Anything new these days that can
use serial can also use USB.

Once these ports are gone, I can imagine a drop in PC size as well. Look at
the mini ATX systems now. The back is covered by these legacy ports.

....just wondering.
 
Phrederik said:
Just wondering... When are the legacy ports on the PC going to dissappear?

I remember reading long ago that the PC'99 spec called for mainboards with
no parallel, serial ports and no ISA slot. The PS/2 port is next to go.

Well, here 2003 is more than half over and these ports still exist.

I'm sure most folks would agree that the cost savings of dropping these
ports would outweigh the need for them. CDR has replaced the floppy pretty
much. Printers come with ethernet or USB. Anything new these days that can
use serial can also use USB.

Once these ports are gone, I can imagine a drop in PC size as well. Look at
the mini ATX systems now. The back is covered by these legacy ports.

...just wondering.
Click to expand...

You still need floppy for SCSI and ATA controller cards, and just in case
you need to get into DOS when running NT/2000/XP. Also for flashing GFX or
motherboard BIOS. Not having a floppy sould still be a pain.

And there already are a few high end boards without serial and parallel
ports.

e.g.
http://www.abit.com.tw/abitweb/webj...DUCT_TYPE=MotherBoard&pMODEL_NAME=AT7-MAX2/XP

ss.
 
Well, when will all motherboards that provide USB ports also have
embedded support within the BIOS so USB mice are usable during BIOS
setup or before any OS gets loaded when then loads the driver to support
that USB mouse? New port technology is great - as long as it is
supported directly by the hardware, too.
 
Most new system bios' allow booting from a CDROM using a CD you can burn
with the startup files just like on a floppy. Then the CDROM would act as
an A: or B: drive.
 
Just wondering... When are the legacy ports on the PC going to dissappear?

I remember reading long ago that the PC'99 spec called for mainboards with
no parallel, serial ports and no ISA slot. The PS/2 port is next to go.

Well, here 2003 is more than half over and these ports still exist.

I'm sure most folks would agree that the cost savings of dropping these
ports would outweigh the need for them. CDR has replaced the floppy pretty
much. Printers come with ethernet or USB. Anything new these days that can
use serial can also use USB.

Once these ports are gone, I can imagine a drop in PC size as well. Look at
the mini ATX systems now. The back is covered by these legacy ports.

...just wondering.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't buy a board without them, there's very minimal space taken
up and usually that much space is even excess due to the needed
routing of other signal lines and the number of PCI slots. It would
be reducing features and marketability with very little space savings.
Note how those mini ATX boards are the smallest full-featured PC
boards available, yet they still DO have space for the ports.

Also consider that some of the other ports on the board might be
removed instead (or rather the physical plug), like audio, USB, and
firewire, since so often the user wants them in the front of the case,
so having a pin-header for the versatility of using front-mount or a
dongle may be better.


Dave


Dave
 
FuzionMan said:
Most new system bios' allow booting from a CDROM using a CD you can burn
with the startup files just like on a floppy. Then the CDROM would act as
an A: or B: drive.
Click to expand...


Yeah, I know. But floppys are a lot more handy for that.

It's not as though they cost much, and I have plenty of room in my tower
cases.

ss.
 
kony said:
I wouldn't buy a board without them, there's very minimal space taken
up and usually that much space is even excess due to the needed
routing of other signal lines and the number of PCI slots. It would
be reducing features and marketability with very little space savings.
Note how those mini ATX boards are the smallest full-featured PC
boards available, yet they still DO have space for the ports.

Also consider that some of the other ports on the board might be
removed instead (or rather the physical plug), like audio, USB, and
firewire, since so often the user wants them in the front of the case,
so having a pin-header for the versatility of using front-mount or a
dongle may be better.
Click to expand...

I agree. As the motherboards' chipsets support the legacy ports, why not
include them?

With the massive economies of scale involved, it would cost more for the
manufacturers to leave them out - floppy drives have a negative cost!

I don't have any use for the parallel port anymore, but I'd still need at
least one serial port, for console access to my router, or just in case I
need to use my old USR hardware dial-up modem.

And I'd rather not needlessly use a USB port for my keyboards, either.

ss.
 
There are still a lot of Printers out there that are Parallel. And it is
nice to have a PS2 Port because it just works better. More reliable. USB
is often unreliable and unavailable as a boot device. No reason to replace
PS2 Keyboard and Mouse it still works. Some Motherboards do not have
Bootable USB Ports, because they use PS2 by default. I imagine they will be
around for a while. We have been phasing in Serial ATA Hard Drives for
about a Year or so and they have not replaced IDE drives yet. What is going
on is that the hardware vendors refuse to to switch over. OEM's like Cheap
hardware. As long as older hardware is cheaper it will be used. Customers
have to force the change by refusing to buy older hardware. Until that
happens, the market drives what is made. In reality it is the OEM's that
buy most of the hardware. That is why we still use big bulky computers.
OEM markets do not like to change, because it costs money.
 
I do not know about most of you, but I can get much accomplished by just
hooking up a piece of equipment to the parallel and serial ports than the
usb ports. First off, external serial modems are very easy to get going,
and the parallel applications like PLIP and Parallel printers that are
widely available are easy to get going when you need them in a pinch.
Also, the serial and parallel ports are very convenient in communications.
Also, many other external applications, such as eprom programmers and the
such use the ports for connections. If you want to replace your 200
dollar programmer for a USB one if it exists, go ahead and get the 200
dollar USB one. If Parallel and Serial ports die in the next year, I'll
be hurting and so will many industries.
 
William said:
I do not know about most of you, but I can get much accomplished by just
hooking up a piece of equipment to the parallel and serial ports than the
usb ports. First off, external serial modems are very easy to get going,
and the parallel applications like PLIP and Parallel printers that are
widely available are easy to get going when you need them in a pinch.
Also, the serial and parallel ports are very convenient in communications.
Also, many other external applications, such as eprom programmers and the
such use the ports for connections. If you want to replace your 200
dollar programmer for a USB one if it exists, go ahead and get the 200
dollar USB one. If Parallel and Serial ports die in the next year, I'll
be hurting and so will many industries.
Click to expand...

How many folks actually have Eprom burners?

Are you so poor that you can't spend a few dollars for a parallel port or
serial port card?

Maybe all PC's should have an eprom programmer built into the rear panel?

The number of folks who actually NEED these ports is small. I can see a
major savings by manufacturers if they could eliminate the silicon and
driver IC's that parallel ports, serial ports and ISA slots require.
 
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