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The serial port: It won't go away
August 10, 2007

While walking around NI Week the other day, I heard several engineers talking about the good old serial port. Despite USB and Ethernet, the serial port is alive and well in instrumentation. Further proof comes from the introduction of a PCI Express-to-serial interface card.

Are you still using the serial port? Do you plan to keep using it as long as your instrumentation keeps working? What kind of devices do you connect to serial ports? Have you needed to go to interface cards and modules that add serial port from USB or Ethernet? Tell me about your applications.

Posted by Martin Rowe on August 10, 2007 | Comments (2)


August 10, 2007
In response to: The serial port: It won't go away
Rich W commented:

Computer communication ports are always an hot subject. As the test equipment manufacturers continue to attempt to steer the industry there is quite a bit of resistance. This is due to many factors but, to me the priamry ones the following; 1. Since not all test equipment currently in use has all of the other ports available we (ATE Engineers) need to utilize the good old RS-232 and IEEE ports. 2. For classified test stations the USB and Lan interfaces are taboo. I am currently working at FEI but, I have started my own consulting company (RF Automation Specialist, LLC). You can contact me at the following e-mail addresses. richardw@freqelec.com rawalker@optonline.net




August 17, 2007
In response to: The serial port: It won't go away
Harry commented:

Serial ports allow direct control with smaller amounts of code. USB and Ethernet take more code and put control of the port into virtual terms. Sometimes one needs control of the port and control lines directly. ALso there are quite a few legacy systems out in the market that run fine and have no ROI to replace them with newer.





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