[rescue] Slightly OT: ?Bad Cap Saga

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Wed, 20 Aug 2008, der Mouse wrote:

> Note that a lot of single-board computers have parallel ports, just not
> labeled as such (they're typically called something like "GPIO pins");
> clearly I'm not the only person who wants them.

I put a "GPIO port" on the first SBC I built.  I'll probably have one
either as a debugging port or a geek port on everything I design for fun.
A parallel-style port really is a nice thing for prototyping and
experimenting, especially in this day of everything being high-speed LVDS
serial everywhere.

Don't get me wrong, I -like- that we're getting reliable high-speed
peripheral buses.  However, there are a lot more folks who can go from
"neat idea" to "cute widget on the desktop" quickly via a parallel port
versus USB.  For one thing, there are very few through-hole USB
interfaces.

Again, no, Joe Consumer doesn't need a parallel port.  He doesn't need it
any more than he needs a quad-core processor, 3GB of memory, hundreds of
gigabytes of disk space, or a gigabit network port.

-- 
Jonathan Patschke | "There is more to life than increasing its speed."
Elgin, TX         |                                   --Mahatma Gandhi
USA               |