[rescue] Slightly OT: ?Bad Cap Saga

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 03:44:26AM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
>> [...] than getting someone to put a parallel port back on a PC, find
>> someone willing to write the drivers for Vista.
>
>Why do you keep bringing up Vista?  I don't care about drivers for
>Vista.  At all.  For any hardware.

I know you don't care about vista, and I don't care about vista, but every
device manufacturer who wants to sell mass quantities does. If it plugs
into a PC, or goes inside one, if there are no vista drivers for it,
it won't sell. 


>Not necessarily.  As I said upthread, I expect it to add somewhat of a
>premium to the price - same as more expansion slots or onboard audio or
>various other options.

Those are premium options that people still want. Very few people
actually want a parallel port these days. 


>Except that in the case of a parallel port, the option of paying that
>premium and getting it doesn't seem to be available.  (Well,
>presumably, short of buying - or becoming - a motherboard maker.)

No, you could pay one to do it for you. Or contact them and see if they
make a board for development that has the place to add it. There
are lots of options out there, but going into a mass market
computer store isn't one of them.

However, more importantly is do you really need a parallel port? I know 
someone else on this list needs one for an old device, but for any kind
of "process control" application, where you need bits in and bits out,
there are lots of them around. They may use different technology, 
but they are there.

What has happened is that they are no longer a mass market item, such
as leaded gasoline (or lead additives), morse code keys, black and white
photographic film, and so on.

Geoff.

 


-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM