*POLL* Do you think Parallel and serial (LPT and COM) ports will ever go away?

[Chriz]

Do you think parallel and serial (LPT and COM) ports will ever go away, in favor of USB? What about the game ports and analog speaker outputs on sound cards, in favor of USB (for joysticks) and a digital speaker output?

The reason I ask is because I just got a job at Best Buy, and if someone comes and buys a new computer with a printer or just a printer...almost all of them have USB functionality, but even though they do, we still always grab a parallel cable, not a USB cable. I've been told that this is because there is a higher profit margin on the parallel cable than on the USB. Is this right?

It's strange how 16 bit ISA slots, which are MUCH newer than the ports I mentioned, went away mostly, yet the parallel/serial ports are still there. What do some of you think about this?

 

[Lord Gwynz]

I'm still waiting for the day where everything would work wireless or work through the infrared ports. I recently opted for a laptop as a desktop replacement but I still have tons of wires and cables strewn all over the place.

 

[ET]

Good question.

IMO, it's not strange that ISA went away earlier. They had a good replacement for some time. USB, OTOH, is pretty new, and PS/2 ports for some reason have only recently began having success (even though they're been around for ages). Certainly there are enough old printers and scanners around to make having a parallel port useful. I certainly don't feel like being forced to replace my printer and scanner just because I bought a new computer. The serial port, OTOH, is probably pretty useless for most people. How many people used it for something other than a mouse?

IMO digital speaker outputs will only become the norm when you can get digital speakers for under $20.

BTW, the really good question is when diskette drives will go away.

 

[Warrenton]

They already went away on mine!!! All of them are disabled, so is my gameport. Everything connected to my system is USB, or my PS/2 keyboard connector, but the keyboard also has the USB hub built in. My speakers still connect via the analog and I like that since the DAC is very good on the SBLive. If I had an awesome stereo with awesome speakers (sometime next fall) I would be connecting to that VIA digital.

My computer has:
Power
PS/2 Keyboard
2port USB Hub built into keyboard
VGA
Ethernet
2XStereo audio

I actually wish that my keyboard used USB to communicate rather than the PS/2. But that didn't seem to work very well from what I heard, too many problems.

 

[Warrenton]

Oh yeah, my diskette drive will be going away very soon. As soon as I get a bootable CD with a RAMDrive on it. I can afford up to 448MB for a RAMDRIVE during system setup.

 

[utopia]

I say Firewire! USB is cool too, but parallel will stick for a while.

 

[Chriz]

Regarding Firewire...I doubt that willl ever become mainstream on most Intel and Via chipsets.

And yes, I suppose I should have included the floppy disk in this discussion. But, I think the floppy disk is used much more often than say serial ports, for instance.

I've heard arguments that the best parallel port transfers are just as fast as USB's 12 Mbps. Maybe USB 2.0 printers will be a better reason to upgrade.

Of course, no one wants to be forced to upgrade their printer. But if you're gonna buy a new computer, is it that big of a deal to buy a new printer too? I mean, just how long has the paralell port been around? Anyone know? I'm kind of afraid to know, myself

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

I would guess that they will start to disapear on Mac's soon, as they were the first to ditch floppies (or have they already gotten rid of them?). Until today, I had no use for either my Parallel, or Serial port, but now I find them both in use. The Serial is the only way that I can connect my TI 83+ and 89 (graphing calculators) to my computer, so it must stay on my computer for a while longer. My sister just left for Austrailia (4 months), so I stole her printer - which doesn't support USB. Also, though for most people buying a new printer/scanner, unless you are going to daisy-chain the devices together through the parallel port, I would suggest using the Parallel for at least one of them. For right now, the parallel port is still something that is on most computers, so why not utilize it when you can (since it is not as CPU dependant as USB). Technically though, there is no real reason to keep the parallel other than to support older devices, since USB is a viable alternative. I wouldn't be surprised to see computers without Parallel/Serial ports in 2 years.

 

[OneEng]

Of course they will eventually dissappear. Bluetooth wireless should effectively replace most perferial device connections in the future. USB will be upgraded to even faster through put or replaced by fire wire or something like it. ISA is still hanging around a little bit. It will still be several years before the serial port is removed. It doesn't cost much to include it, and a vast hord of legacy devices use it.

 

[Mem]

I still use PS2 & Parallel connectors but when I upgrade my printer will go USB,not sure about my PS2 mouse,as for ISA well I have all PCI & AGP hardware,so for myself ISA is dead.

 

[utopia]

true, true, but FW has 30 times more bandwith than USB.

 

[KarsinTheHutt]

Yes - but it will be years before we see the last of them... look at ISA slots - soon they will be history!

 

[AndyHui]

I don't mind PS/2 keyboards and mice, but you might as well get rid of serial and parallel....USB serves printers, modems, scanners fine.

 

[Chriz]

What hardware (or interfaces) on modern PC's is regarded as "legacy" hardware? I'm pretty sure I know, but I just want to hear the answer from someone who knows more about it.

 

[ET]

The x86 compatible CPU

 

[Mday]

of course.

there are already legacy free systems.

of course there are parallel port and serial port adapters to USB. those work, but are picky.

the entire ISA architecture is going to be shoved out the window, which includes serial and parallel ports.

game ports are also midi ports. so it depends. there are still those who plug in keyboards to soundcards. though there are also adapters for that for usb controllers. of course MOST new game controllers have USB functionality, and for controllers, USB is a godsend.

analog output is not really going to die, but i'll say this, with the advent of DVD audio which is dolby digital, it's not going to be long for there to be an actual dolby digital decoder for the PC, hopefully that'd include DTS also. and i mean hardware. there will be software downmixing to 2 or 4 or 4.1 channel.

well, if i get a printer, i'd get the cable online (usb or parallel) to save a couple of bucks. i'd get the printer online too =P no one cares about the cabling, it's insignificant. the printer manufacturers make their money on the ink or toner cartridges and media (specialty paper). of course they don't take a loss on the printers (often).

 

[Mday]

and gwynz's desire is not far away either. but not infrared since infrared actually requires a direct line of site.

utopia, USB 2.0 =P

 

[Castellan]

I really don't have a problem with parallel and serial ports, as I use them every day, both at work and at home. I'm glad USB is fianlly making a push, so normal users will not have to worry about such things as IRQs and I/O addresses, but the techie in me just can't say no to those kinds of challenges. I would hate to configure a router through a usb port

 

[LordOfAll]

Well in the new PC standard (dont remember if it is 2000 or 2001) they have a legacy free class of pc. At first I thought "yeah", but when I read closer they want to get rid of the ports, but set the irq's they would normaly use to reserved. Meaning PNP wouldn't pick them up as open resources. This to me would be the only real reason to get rid of them, so whats the point really? Its not like it costs more than a couple bucks for the actual connectors and the design is already in the chipsets, I'm sure Intel and VIA haven't broke a sweat trying to reengineer their southbridge around them.

 

[Factor5]

The last Time i used a parallel port was whan i hooked my dexxa mouse up to my 286 6 years ago, i say throw em out the window

 

[Caitiff]

While I will concede that there are much faster technologies in use, the parallel and serial ports are still tools that are invaluable to use. Anyone that has tried to troubleshoot DOS w/ a USB keyboard will vouchsafe that for me. The serial port is an incredibly cheap and useful port to connect all sorts of non-pc type tools, and many of them have been mentioned above. Until my hardware is not dependant on installing an OS just to be able to use them (ie my keyboard and mouse, etc), I'll stick to the tried and true, thank you very much! Besides, I use a Laplink alternative all the time to tranfer files to people's computers that don't have a nic, and don't even suggest opening the case to install a NIC just to tranfer large quantities of files!!

 

[beer]

Ahhhh I'm seeing a lot of people saying things that don't quite understand what rides on the ISA bus, and what does not.

ISA:
Your 8/16-bit ISA slots
AT keyboards
Serial ports
Parallel ports
Not sure about PS/2 but maybe.

On the PCI agent bus:
PCI slots
On-board hard drive controllers
USB ports

And AGP is a dedicated Point to Point bus...

Although I have my parallel port disabled to free up an IRQ, I still have both my serial ports maxed out. I have a BackUPS 500 on one serial port and a PalmPilot Hotsync on another. I look forward to one day when I can disable those and recover the IRQs...but it's a long way off.

Guys the Parallel port has a lot of bandwidth to it. USB is 12 Mb/sec, right? Last time I checked wasn't the parallel port >4 MB/s?

 

[beer]

oops regarding the first part of my message, I should have gone down to Mday's response and read what he said about hte ISA bus. Sorry for not giving you credit

 

[beer]

Oh and isn't the next flavor of USB called USB 1.1 not USB 2.0??

 

[Adul]

yes I do.