6 ms·

This is literally the reason why I keep my ancient panasonic CF and 1st gen latitudes and thinkpads around. The laptops have the huge advantage that they have

This is literally the reason why I keep my ancient panasonic CF and 1st gen latitudes and thinkpads around. The laptops have the huge advantage that they have a serial port, which allows to rescue pretty much everything given that you implement an adapter software for it. I wish modern hacker laptops had an easy non-proprietary way to get a serial port. The only alternative we have is using an Arduino based solution...but that's like a downgrade compared to 20 years ago.

midasuni 5y ago
USB serial adapters will give you a standard usb port at /dev/ttyUSBn, usable via minicom etc.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  USB to serial/paralel adapters are good enough for most hobby projects but aren't suitable for professional or latency critical applications like industrial, audio, arcade retro-emulation and CNC machines. There's too many variables in the way, like the USB to X chip used in that converter plus the driver for it and how the OS scheduler handles the USB stack and API calls, all this causing major jitter in the communication timing. In uni we still had air-gapped Win2K/98 computers for the robotics labs since in the days prior to Windows XP, your app could write directly to the serial/paralel ports, so you could have your program use 100% CPU load, jitter-free, to poll the serial/paralel port, that's why they were used in CNC. For example your Win/DOS program would directly drive the cutting head in real-time through the paralel port. You can say goodbye to that via USB converters unless you want your expensive machine mangle its cutting head. My embedded systems prof from uni would only buy Fujitsu (Siemens) laptops as they were the only ones who still sold models with serial and parallel ports on modern hardware even as late as 2017(!), so if you're a professional or serious hobbyist in this space I suggest you grab one of those before they become scarce and overpriced like how high-end CRTs have now become. There are companies in Taiwan/China making custom X86 barebones/motherboards using modern hardware and old ports but they're low volume and destined for the industrial market so they have eye-watering prices.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    > There are companies in Taiwan/China making custom X86 barebones/motherboards using modern hardware and old ports but they're low volume and destined for the industrial market so they have eye-watering prices. Alternatively, you may take an embedded board standard like Comexpress that has a wide range of ports, including a bunch of real UART.
  - _trampeltier 5y ago
    Fujitsu Siemens Notebook not just had a serial and a paralell port, they also had a 3:4 monitor (I think is the way better format for a notebook). So I bought one of the latest models :-). For industrial use Siemens has a notebook called "Field PG". It has 2xEthernet and even the newest models have a real serial port (and also ProfiBus if you need that).
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      Yeah, in my book, Fujitsu-Siemens was one class above the Lenovo Thinkpads of late which are now a fading shadow of their former glory days. Check out how many ports and devices they can fit into a modern thin and light without compromising repairability https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS2uogVMK8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS2uogVMK8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXmlgc7Qyhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXmlgc7Qyhc
      - _trampeltier 5y ago
        I have one for private use.
  - cartoonfoxes 5y ago
    > USB to serial/paralel adapters are good enough for most hobby projects but aren't suitable for professional or latency critical applications like industrial, audio, arcade retro-emulation and CNC machines. That doesn't stop their rampant use in those applications, regardless.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
kogepathic 5y ago
> I wish modern hacker laptops had an easy non-proprietary way to get a serial port. Dell docking stations like the PR02X provide serial/parallel ports directly from the laptop, and Dell Latitude laptops with the E-Port docking connector were made until ~2016. Both the PR02X and Latitude laptops with an E-Port are readily available on eBay for reasonable prices. I've successfully used an E6220 with the PR02X to bitbang out the parallel port for a project.
the_only_law 5y ago
I have an old toughbook for for this reason as well. I tried looking into some modern ultra ruggeds but damn they’re expensive.
jlgaddis 5y ago
About a week ago I wrote in a comment here that "Some of us (masochists) actually like RS-232!". It's nice to be reminded that I'm not the only one! My primary laptop is an (8-year-old!) ThinkPad W530 that I can't bring myself to part with (it's a beast and still outperforms many of today's more "modern" laptops). It doesn't have an actual serial port built-in but it does have an (34mm) ExpressCard slot. Luckily, I managed to find a card with an actual RS-232 serial port that connects to the host using PCIe, NOT USB. I'm going to be quite sad once the W530 gives up the magic smoke. I have stockpiled spare hardware in preparation of that day, however.

midasuni 5y ago

USB serial adapters will give you a standard usb port at /dev/ttyUSBn, usable via minicom etc.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
USB to serial/paralel adapters are good enough for most hobby projects but aren't suitable for professional or latency critical applications like industrial, audio, arcade retro-emulation and CNC machines. There's too many variables in the way, like the USB to X chip used in that converter plus the driver for it and how the OS scheduler handles the USB stack and API calls, all this causing major jitter in the communication timing. In uni we still had air-gapped Win2K/98 computers for the robotics labs since in the days prior to Windows XP, your app could write directly to the serial/paralel ports, so you could have your program use 100% CPU load, jitter-free, to poll the serial/paralel port, that's why they were used in CNC. For example your Win/DOS program would directly drive the cutting head in real-time through the paralel port. You can say goodbye to that via USB converters unless you want your expensive machine mangle its cutting head. My embedded systems prof from uni would only buy Fujitsu (Siemens) laptops as they were the only ones who still sold models with serial and parallel ports on modern hardware even as late as 2017(!), so if you're a professional or serious hobbyist in this space I suggest you grab one of those before they become scarce and overpriced like how high-end CRTs have now become. There are companies in Taiwan/China making custom X86 barebones/motherboards using modern hardware and old ports but they're low volume and destined for the industrial market so they have eye-watering prices.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > There are companies in Taiwan/China making custom X86 barebones/motherboards using modern hardware and old ports but they're low volume and destined for the industrial market so they have eye-watering prices. Alternatively, you may take an embedded board standard like Comexpress that has a wide range of ports, including a bunch of real UART.
- _trampeltier 5y ago
  Fujitsu Siemens Notebook not just had a serial and a paralell port, they also had a 3:4 monitor (I think is the way better format for a notebook). So I bought one of the latest models :-). For industrial use Siemens has a notebook called "Field PG". It has 2xEthernet and even the newest models have a real serial port (and also ProfiBus if you need that).
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Yeah, in my book, Fujitsu-Siemens was one class above the Lenovo Thinkpads of late which are now a fading shadow of their former glory days. Check out how many ports and devices they can fit into a modern thin and light without compromising repairability https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS2uogVMK8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS2uogVMK8U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXmlgc7Qyhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXmlgc7Qyhc
    - _trampeltier 5y ago
      I have one for private use.
- cartoonfoxes 5y ago
  > USB to serial/paralel adapters are good enough for most hobby projects but aren't suitable for professional or latency critical applications like industrial, audio, arcade retro-emulation and CNC machines. That doesn't stop their rampant use in those applications, regardless.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

kogepathic 5y ago

> I wish modern hacker laptops had an easy non-proprietary way to get a serial port. Dell docking stations like the PR02X provide serial/parallel ports directly from the laptop, and Dell Latitude laptops with the E-Port docking connector were made until ~2016. Both the PR02X and Latitude laptops with an E-Port are readily available on eBay for reasonable prices. I've successfully used an E6220 with the PR02X to bitbang out the parallel port for a project.

the_only_law 5y ago

I have an old toughbook for for this reason as well. I tried looking into some modern ultra ruggeds but damn they’re expensive.

jlgaddis 5y ago

About a week ago I wrote in a comment here that "Some of us (masochists) actually like RS-232!". It's nice to be reminded that I'm not the only one! My primary laptop is an (8-year-old!) ThinkPad W530 that I can't bring myself to part with (it's a beast and still outperforms many of today's more "modern" laptops). It doesn't have an actual serial port built-in but it does have an (34mm) ExpressCard slot. Luckily, I managed to find a card with an actual RS-232 serial port that connects to the host using PCIe, NOT USB. I'm going to be quite sad once the W530 gives up the magic smoke. I have stockpiled spare hardware in preparation of that day, however.