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Fully legacy-free mobos?

B

Brent Turbeaux

Junior Member
When should we expect to see motherboards that shed the technology of the 80s and 90s, in favor of streamlined boards with less ancient technology muddying the waters? When I say "ancient," I'm talking PS/2 ports, LPT and COM, PCI slots, floppy controllers, and, as soon as feasible, BIOS.

Essentially, take what Apple has done with Intel mobo development and give it to the rest of us. Why are PC mobos loaded down with junk from the Reagan era?
 
I think Abit made a board a while ago with only USB. It had PATA internally though.

As soon as SATA optical drives are more available, I'd love to see a board with only USB and SATA.
 
Motherboards have been built that were stripped of many of those "features". The Abit IT7, ca. 2001, for instance. They failed in the marketplace. Abit's second IT7 version had all the ports back.

There've been some Gateway PCs that used the Intel flexible "BIOS" (the name of which eludes me, but I've worked with a couple of Gateways that had them). The Gateways, too, failed in their attempt to replace the BIOS.
 
I remember seeing a budget board (perhaps Syntax) that had eight USB ports in the back, no COM or LPT or PS/2.
 
Originally posted by: sm8000
I remember seeing a budget board (perhaps Syntax) that had eight USB ports in the back, no COM or LPT or PS/2.
Click to expand...

EDIT: It was the Syntax S740M. Got the port count wrong but close enough, and you see what they were going for.

EDIT: Quote != Edit
 
Originally posted by: Brent Turbeaux
Why are PC mobos loaded down with junk from the Reagan era?
Click to expand...

Because a lot of people still use that junk. And unlike the Apple ecosystem, no one hardware manufacturer in the PC space has the power to force users to give up the stuff they want without it taking quite a while.
 
Im keen to see parallel ports etc gone NOw, PS/2 can still be useful from time to time, but otherwise I just want USB, firewire, SATA etc. the new, cool stuff. and lots of it.
 
Yeah I don't think anything uses parallel anymore, but there are lots of things like early digital cameras and GPSs that use parallel, although you can get an adapter for USB if you still use such a device as I do. As for PS/2, seems to me that those ports take up as much space as two USB ports would, so what's the difference?
 
The only things i still use on these "ancient" mobo's still is the floppy drive and ps/2 ports.

And thats mainly on first fire up fo the system (ps2 keyboard and mouse, which will later after complete install of everythng get forced to usb keybaord and mouse) and when updating my system bios and i doubt the bios will ever disappear, atleast not within 10 years or so.
 
I wouldn't mind seeing all legacy stuff go away, it's just in the way now..I don't have any installed unless doing something that requires it.
 
This is a retarded post. Like the previous poster said, others have FAILED in this attempt. Why? It's because NO ONE would buy it! WHY? Cuz we all want that stuff. Maybe a FEW would want to do away with all that stuff you mentioned, but they want to make MONEY. See, in a windows platform there is the ability to construct your pc so that you put the parts that YOU WANT. If you want someone else to make that decision all you have to do is buy an APPLE and that decision process will be taken away from you and you can have an computer that has no legacy parts! Woo hoo! Hurray for Apple! They are king of conformity! Alright!
 
I want to see a day where mobos have only Firewire/USB for peripherals, no PCI Slots (all pcie 2.0 slots, 2x16,1x8,3x4 slots), only SATA connections internally, no floppy controllers or those old stupid game ports and whatnot. Also no more VGA D-sub connectors(pretty much anything using a d-sub connector needs to go). For video just Dual Link DVI-D and HDMI for pure digital video/sound. Also perhaps a USB 3.0 standard would be nice if it could outdo the bandwidth for firewire, that way there is unified backwards compatible slot. Odds of it all happening in the next 10 years... laugable.

However getting everyone to stop using PCI will be tricky, especially since creative cant figure out how to properly program a PCI-e sound card, and they are too busy abusing peoples wallets to try. This is largely because designing for PCIe is more difficult than PCI, since its newer and the developers havent spent the last 10 years using its protocol till they know it like the back of their hands.

This will take years to accomplish, and by then something better will come along, because companies dont like to switch to new things, since the old things are tried and true and easy to program. Kind of like how RS-232 is cake to setup, but USB is a huge PITA for the system designer.
 
Personally, I'd like to see a standardized connector for case wiring. One connector for power, reset, LEDs, and speaker.
 
All that legacy stuff could cost almost zero to add, I mean nobody is engineering how a PS2 port is going to work, its canned and done. It might cost more to take it out, than to leave it in and just not use it. I remember I was really annoyed when I found out NONE of the PCs we had around the house still supported MIDI connections. The next ones sure did.

20 some years ago computers made a huge change, and my guess is sometime in the next 10 we will see the next shift away from requiring a skilled user, or a box of any significant size.

I just hope my old PS2 keyboards still work, none of the new stuff I like much.
 
Originally posted by: ADDAvenger
Originally posted by: sm8000
Personally, I'd like to see a standardized connector for case wiring. One connector for power, reset, LEDs, and speaker.
Click to expand...

Shoot, I'll second that.
Click to expand...


Me too.



I've half solved this problem on my new PaQ cases. I provide a Control (i,e Pow, Rst, Pled and HD) cable that plugs into a standard copnnector in the case. You can attach the cable onto the mobo while the mobo is still ouside the case, and leave them connected permanently to the mobo.




Peter

 
Hi,


You still need a floppy to construct a bootable CD (using Nero)

You also need it to provide additional drivers for Windows Install.

I would never sell a machine without a Floppy until these two things are fixed.



Control of a professional VCR for video capture requires a serial port.



UPS's are controlled vai a serial port, and this is more relaible than using USB because the USB is not a sharable data bus.




Peter


 
Originally posted by: mikeford
All that legacy stuff could cost almost zero to add, I mean nobody is engineering how a PS2 port is going to work, its canned and done. It might cost more to take it out, than to leave it in and just not use it. I remember I was really annoyed when I found out NONE of the PCs we had around the house still supported MIDI connections. The next ones sure did.

20 some years ago computers made a huge change, and my guess is sometime in the next 10 we will see the next shift away from requiring a skilled user, or a box of any significant size.

I just hope my old PS2 keyboards still work, none of the new stuff I like much.
Click to expand...

Actually, I've read here that every time PS/2 is implemented on a motherboard, royalties are paid to the patent owner. Not using it will bring board prices down.
 
I still need a LPT and a serial port
LPT Port for my HD44780 VFD and LCD Displays
Serial Port for programming my police scanner
It makes me mad that on my A8N-E I have to use up an Expansion slot to get my serial port back it seems ASUS just could have easily have put one on the back as there is an empty space where one would be atleast I still have one though
 
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