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Legacy Ports on PC Notebooks


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Topic: Legacy Ports on PC Notebooks

Vinny
Member

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: NC, Indiana
Posts: 465

Legacy Ports on PC Notebooks

I was pondering this today. Why do nearly all PC notebooks have old archaic legacy ports like parallel ports, serial ports, and ps2 ports? USB has replaced these for more than a year (you could even argue two). Couldn't they save money, cut costs, and improve design by cutting these from the mix leaving 2 USB, IEEE1394, S-video, audio, ethernet, modem and external monitor ports?

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12-09-2001 04:36 AM

Keefer Lucas
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Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Atlantic Rim
Posts: 570

Re: Legacy Ports on PC Notebooks

quote:
Originally posted by Vinny
Couldn't they save money, cut costs, and improve design by cutting these...

Not when the Asian manufacturers still have hundreds of thousands of motherboards (such as they are on Notebooks) in stock that they are unloading on the cheap. Once the backlog has cleared over the next year I suspect we will see the last of laptops with legacy ports.

12-09-2001 02:16 PM

sowens
Member

Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 284

Actually they are, and it's causing some problems.

Where I work, we use the serial port to upgrade our products in the field. We're in the process of replacing a number of notebooks, and, from my understanding, all the new notebooks from Compaq don't have the standard 9 pin serial ports anymore. They only have USB ports.

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12-09-2001 02:56 PM

MarkEagle
VisorCentral Staff

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

Re: Re: Legacy Ports on PC Notebooks

quote:
Originally posted by Keefer Lucas
Once the backlog has cleared over the next year I suspect we will see the last of laptops with legacy ports.

Perhaps, but as long as there are legacy peripherals out there...

I suppose someday, those ports will disappear altogether, even from desktops. I've seen those USB docking stations that provide the legacy ports...

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12-09-2001 02:56 PM

Keefer Lucas
Member

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Atlantic Rim
Posts: 570

Re: Re: Re: Legacy Ports on PC Notebooks

quote:
Originally posted by MarkEagle
Perhaps, but as long as there are legacy peripherals out there...

I get a kick out of the notion of legacy peripherals. At work they once spent several hundred dollars extra on a workstation to support a scanner that required a SCSI card interface (this was actually foisted as the primary justification for the specific machine). Meanwhile, I ran to Staples and bought a $35 refurbed HP Scanjet with a USB connector and hooked it to my machine. Viola! It even had better specs than the old scanner.

I suspect that every year companies waste millions, if not billions of dollars supporting legacy peripherals in an attempt to look "thrifty" to COOs who don't know squat about IT issues. There are certainly some devices out there that businesses have alot invested in (bar code scanners and custom input devices and the like), but for the most part I've never come in contact with a legacy device that couldn't be canned for a relatively inexpensive new device with a USB connector.

12-09-2001 05:33 PM

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