Why does this thing have 9 pin serial?

[shortylickens]

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-3770S.../dp/B008KBJUBG


In fact, it has two.
What for?

 

[TheStu]

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-3770S.../dp/B008KBJUBG


In fact, it has two.
What for?

You just never know when you're going to need a Serial port. Or two.

 

[Matt1970]

You would be surprised how much those ports are still used.

 

[bruceb]

Good to have, as when you want to connect to Cisco equipment for provisioning with a laptop, you need a serial port. Sometimes, the USB to Serial adapters, just will not do the job. And if you use equipment, like Smart Card (Direct TV or Dish) type cards or equipment that can read / write to Credit Card mag stripes (for things like MC, Visa or card access systems) quite often, they require a real serial type interface to work with them.

 

[crashtestdummy]

My lab has a lot of lab equipment that is 15+ years old but would cost six figures to replace even now. Said equipment tends to use serial interfaces to interact with the host PC. I'm sure I could replace the necessary components to get me a USB interface, but that's still a lot more expensive than buying a computer with a serial port.

 

[lakedude]

Good to have, as when you want to connect to Cisco equipment

^ This

Once a Cisco Hub/Switch/Router has an IP you can communicate via the network but for the original setup (or certain other fancy things) you need a serial connection.

It does not need to be a laptop however a laptop with a serial port is handier for this sort of thing.

 

[frostedflakes]

There are a lot of mini ITX boards geared more toward industrial/embedded applications, where serial interfaces are still used quite a bit.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Yeah serial ports are nice for lot of stuff. Great for home automation stuff too. Though most boards like Arduino use USB and have a built in serial emulator anyway.

 

[piasabird]

Many devices use serial. I am thinking some projectors use it. Some scientific sensors also use it. Anyway that is specific to that particular motherboard. There is probably someone wondering if you can get one with a Parrallel port to hook up a joystick.

I have seen this case before:
http://www.mini-box.com/M350-universal-mini-itx-enclosure

You could just use a different motherboard with better options. That thing does not have very good cooling to stuff an i7 into it.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Dual NICs, no DisplayPort, VGA, 2x Serial, and a Q77 chipset? (Only one that supports vPro.)

Or at least the kind of computer that will spend the next decade stuck in a cabinet to run a 20-year-old CNC machine. I'm surprised they didn't have a parallel port on there instead of DVI.

 

[vbuggy]

There are a lot of mini ITX boards geared more toward industrial/embedded applications, where serial interfaces are still used quite a bit.

This, I'm guessing it's aimed specifically at said market

Dual NICs, no DisplayPort, VGA, 2x Serial, and a Q77 chipset? (Only one that supports vPro.)

Or at least the kind of computer that will spend the next decade stuck in a cabinet to run a 20-year-old CNC machine. I'm surprised they didn't have a parallel port on there instead of DVI.

Not really. For some reason a lot of stuff which used to use parallel have switched to USB or others a long time ago. Serial refuses to go away.