SparkFun Forums

[jandirks]

Yesterday I helped my brother in law with his new computer. I was a little surprised to see that there were no serial ports in it. After a little thinking, it seems logical, not many new devices that come out need serial ports.

Sparkfun came out with 2 new boards on 4/28, both having a serial port connector. You guys might want to consider to develop new boards with USB instead of serial ports, maybe not possible for everything, but still...

Regards,

Jan-Dirk

[seulater]

Serial is still a MUST for me. i just use one of these.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... =B131-5002

[Kuroi Kenjin]

I got something similar for my laptop... off of NewEgg.

[jandirks]

I know about these things, but it seems that quite a lot of products don't work with USB to serial convertors.

Jan-Dirk

[sparky]

Hi Jan,

The first boards we developed (the Lassen iQ USB eval board) used USB. But the problem lies with drivers and OS's. The CP210x USB VCP drivers work great, but many times they cause problems for some customers, and huge headaches for our tech support staff.

On the other hand, RS232 is easy, every micro has a UART (nearly), bootloading is fantabulous, MAX3232 ICs are 1/10th the cost of USB ICs, and serial com ports are the same across platforms.

We will continue to develop RS232 and USB boards. Expect to see many more mini-USB connections.

-Nathan

[MGP]

Hey Sparky -- switching to a mini USB-B connector, especially on your smaller modules is a really good idea I think.

[sparky]

It's a funny trade off. The connectors are cheaper, but the cables are more expensive. USB A to B cables are cheaper than bubble gum.

-Nathan