This is just a very small number of links from Google. There are a vast number of devices out there. It's by no means a dead technology.
No, but it's dying and all of those links you pointed at above were Windows only. Some had 'page last updated in 2002'.
I used to write Point of Sale software and that was all standard serial/parallel based hardware apart from IBM's custom serial bus and connectors. At the moment I'm writing Mac/web based POS and warehousing software. You can buy serial kit still but everything so far has also been USB from barcode scanners to RFID printers and receivers to cash drawers and card swipes.
It makes my life a whole lot easier too as dealing with serial comms in old POS systems was a pain in the arse and with the USB kit we have now the new system is almost entirely web based with a little bit of Applescript to interface with barcode printers.
So saying we still need serial and parallel ports is not true. YOU may want them but 99.9% of people would rather not have them.
Yeah, please, excuse the french, but F**K serial and parallel ports. Gone. Game Over. Ancient History. Buried. Lost. Discarded. Burnt up in the Atmosphere at Reentry. Get the picture?
I understand the niche uses for it, even if these niche markets are/ are part of billion-dollar industries, there is a 10^-10 likelyhood of Apple putting serial and parallel ports in the Mac Pro.
People that need serial and parallel for old mice and printers, and other devices such as the test equipment that you mention, yes, almost all PC motherboards still have them. But screw it, it ain't gonna be in the Mac Pro if we have a say about it...!!
BTW I'm pissed that FW400 lost out to USB2.0 - FireWire not only sounded cooler but it was overall better.
What you're showing is still only a subset of what Hp is offering. It's convenient to ignore that fact....Never state what Apple will do, and never put a price on it. The best you can do is to say that you think it would be a good idea for it.
Yeah it seems like a lot of people are really trying to price out Xeon Woodcrest systems now that they're in the market and available for config on sites like Dell. It's an interesting excercise, always good to see what others are doing, rather than having one's head up the apple ass all the time
[QUOTE]Originally posted by melgross
Apple doesn't offer that board at all, and the ones that come with the machine are cheaper game boards. I bet you can get ANY board for the Hp.
Same old story, unfortunately. The limited choice in video cards. Is it that hard to write drivers for a more expanded choice of video cards? Probably not for the 2D, but I guess seamless 3D via OpenGL is where the drivers consume budget to write for.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by melgross
If you happen to be about right, it's just luck. everyone comes out with a prediction of what Apple will do. someone has to be lucky. But it means nothing.
We should start some sort of jackpot to see who gets closest to the final model announced. US$5 each to enter, the more join in, the bigger the jackpot. Now where's that gambling website I just made... Just remember, the house always wins - or in this case, Apple always wins no matter what Dell and HP is offering. In the sense that Apple will have its Mac Pro line, and it will sell.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by melgross
That 3 year onsite warranty is worth $300 by itself. When you add Apple's extended one to the price it still isn't quite as good.
I've taken your line here a bit out of context but I think Apple's extended warranty is worthwhile. The price of a single component failure like the logic board or screen is covered already by the AppleCare in the 2nd and 3rd years. I say there is an average of 2.5 component failures in 3 years of an Apple machine. If you don't get the extended AppleCare, you just gotta hope all those 2.5 component failures happen in your first year. Lets assume best-case scenario of 1 component failure on average in 3 years for any Mac. It's a game of insurance risk then - either you hope that it happens in the first year, or the component that fails costs less, including labour, to fix, then the price of Extended Applecare. If you're unlucky and get 2 component failures in 3 years, let's say if both happen in the 2nd and 3rd year, then your looking at "might as well have got the Extended Applecare, and peace of mind".
Apple has always offered serial ports. Until they went to USB.
You're not even funny Melgross...you know *exactly* what *you* and *I* were talking about when we were talking about serial and parallel. Devices are either serial or parallel...so your logic is flawed when you say "Apple has always offered serial ports. Until they went to USB" since USB *is* also a serial port (that's what the S stands for afterall.)
You and I *both* know we were talking about the legacy serial and parallel ports commonly found on PCs. Don't pull that context-switch game on me to try to prove a point.
edit: if you didn't want to be dragged in this conversation you shouldn't have included the HP's serial and parallel ports as part of the "zomg wow, what a deal" list you created earlier.
Apple doesn't offer that board at all, and the ones that come with the machine are cheaper game boards. I bet you can get ANY board for the Hp.
Same old story, unfortunately. The limited choice in video cards. Is it that hard to write drivers for a more expanded choice of video cards? Probably not for the 2D, but I guess seamless 3D via OpenGL is where the drivers consume budget to write for.
Just I'd chime in on the video card problem. The driver problem is OpenGL on the Mac versus DirectX on the PC. There are two different interfaces to use the card and of course the relatively small Mac market which leads to a smaller still market for a Mac gamer who can afford a workstation class video card which costs almost as much as the computer itself. Of course there are relatively few games for the Mac OS X platform. Your typical user, even a Photoshop or Final Cut Pro user has little need for a fancy video card. They need lots of fast RAM, disk space and fast CPUs to process all that data. They do have a need for large displays, so a dual-link DVI card with enough VRAM should do.
macosrumors.com is reporting that the first Intel based Mac Pro models with have Conroe (AKA Core 2 Duo) and Kentsfield (AKA Core 2 Extreme) processors. That means no quad processors the first go round, but there should be rapid (quarterly) upgrades to eventually include Woodcrest. see http://www.macosrumors.com/20060723A1.php
macosrumors.com is reporting that the first Intel based Mac Pro models with have Conroe (AKA Core 2 Duo) and Kentsfield (AKA Core 2 Extreme) processors. That means no quad processors the first go round, but there should be rapid (quarterly) upgrades to eventually include Woodcrest. see http://www.macosrumors.com/20060723A1.php
If MOSR reported the sky was blue, I wouldn't believe it.
Problems with that scenario:
Kentsfield isn't out until late 2006 (November)
Kentsfield != Core 2 Extreme
Kentsfield is quad-core.
Once Kentsfield comes out, Clovertown comes with it, making Woodcrest 2nd-tier.
This is the MOSR which is predicting Crossfired X1900XTXs in the next Macbook Pro. This is the MOSR which originally thought Conroe was Quad-core. Don't take them seriously.
Certainly the C2EE will be high end Conroes at first, but my understanding is that Kentsfield will be the next Core 2 Extreme when it is first released.
macosrumors.com is reporting that the first Intel based Mac Pro models with have Conroe (AKA Core 2 Duo) and Kentsfield (AKA Core 2 Extreme) processors. That means no quad processors the first go round, but there should be rapid (quarterly) upgrades to eventually include Woodcrest. see http://www.macosrumors.com/20060723A1.php
You know, something like this wouldn't be that bad of an idea. Apple could very easily sell "Mac Pro" machines in the 1499 to 2499 range very easily (ie, with margin) and they'll be very attractive machines.
Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.4 GHz Conroe)
1067 MHz FSB
512 MB DDR2-667
256 MB GeForce 6600
160 GB SATA
$1499
Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67 GHz Conroe)
1067 MHz FSB
1 GB DDR2-667
256 MB GeForce 7800
250 GB SATA
$1999
2.93 GHz Kentsfield
1067 MHz FSB
1 GB DDR2-667
256 MB GeForce 7800
250 GB SATA
$2499
If they want, they can even have for an ultimate system with:
2S Xeon 5160 (3 GHz Woodcrest)
1333 MH dual FSB
1 GB FB-DIMM
512 MB GeForce 7800
500 GB SATA
$3499
That's assuming Intel is willing to ship a Kentsfield CPU 2 to 3 months early for Apple.
I think THT is loosing it. He is so used to disappointment that he is predicting it. IT must be because WWDC is so close. Anyway Macrumors is wrong on all counts. IMO, there will probably be something in the neighborhood of two Conroe machines, and two woodcrerst machines.
I think THT is loosing it. He is so used to disappointment that he is predicting it. IT must be because WWDC is so close. Anyway Macrumors is wrong on all counts. IMO, there will probably be something in the neighborhood of two Conroe machines, and two woodcrerst machines.
MacOSRumors is a farce. Plain and simple. I like THT's line-up. I don't think the Kentsfield is realistic, of course, but it's a good placeholder for the high end system which will undoubtedly be 2.93GHz. I don't think Apple will mix Core 2 Duo and Xeon 5100's in the Mac Pro line. My guess is that they will be all Xeon 5100's with an "ultimate" two dual core processor system at the very top (quad), like THT predicts.
No, but it's dying and all of those links you pointed at above were Windows only. Some had 'page last updated in 2002'.
I used to write Point of Sale software and that was all standard serial/parallel based hardware apart from IBM's custom serial bus and connectors. At the moment I'm writing Mac/web based POS and warehousing software. You can buy serial kit still but everything so far has also been USB from barcode scanners to RFID printers and receivers to cash drawers and card swipes.
It makes my life a whole lot easier too as dealing with serial comms in old POS systems was a pain in the arse and with the USB kit we have now the new system is almost entirely web based with a little bit of Applescript to interface with barcode printers.
So saying we still need serial and parallel ports is not true. YOU may want them but 99.9% of people would rather not have them.
It's really not dying yet. At some point it will, but not now. There was ONE page dated 2002. The others are all current.
The fact that these are not Mac anymore is the point I brought up. One link shows how to repin for 232 from 422. Done all of the time.
Yeah, please, excuse the french, but F**K serial and parallel ports. Gone. Game Over. Ancient History. Buried. Lost. Discarded. Burnt up in the Atmosphere at Reentry. Get the picture?
I understand the niche uses for it, even if these niche markets are/ are part of billion-dollar industries, there is a 10^-10 likelyhood of Apple putting serial and parallel ports in the Mac Pro.
People that need serial and parallel for old mice and printers, and other devices such as the test equipment that you mention, yes, almost all PC motherboards still have them. But screw it, it ain't gonna be in the Mac Pro if we have a say about it...!!
BTW I'm pissed that FW400 lost out to USB2.0 - FireWire not only sounded cooler but it was overall better.
It's easy for you guys who never use equipment that requires these interfaces, because you really don't know much about it. You just deal with the computer as is, and some do some programming work for stuff in the computer industry itself, but not these sophisticated pieces of biomedical equipment and such. If you did, you'd know.
That 3 year onsite warranty is worth $300 by itself. When you add Apple's extended one to the price it still isn't quite as good.
I've taken your line here a bit out of context but I think Apple's extended warranty is worthwhile. The price of a single component failure like the logic board or screen is covered already by the AppleCare in the 2nd and 3rd years. I say there is an average of 2.5 component failures in 3 years of an Apple machine. If you don't get the extended AppleCare, you just gotta hope all those 2.5 component failures happen in your first year. Lets assume best-case scenario of 1 component failure on average in 3 years for any Mac. It's a game of insurance risk then - either you hope that it happens in the first year, or the component that fails costs less, including labour, to fix, then the price of Extended Applecare. If you're unlucky and get 2 component failures in 3 years, let's say if both happen in the 2nd and 3rd year, then your looking at "might as well have got the Extended Applecare, and peace of mind".
I don't recall offhand, but does Applecare have a 3 year onsite service?
You're not even funny Melgross...you know *exactly* what *you* and *I* were talking about when we were talking about serial and parallel. Devices are either serial or parallel...so your logic is flawed when you say "Apple has always offered serial ports. Until they went to USB" since USB *is* also a serial port (that's what the S stands for afterall.)
You and I *both* know we were talking about the legacy serial and parallel ports commonly found on PCs. Don't pull that context-switch game on me to try to prove a point.
edit: if you didn't want to be dragged in this conversation you shouldn't have included the HP's serial and parallel ports as part of the "zomg wow, what a deal" list you created earlier.
USB is VERY different from the older 232, 422, and 485 serial ports. USB is packet based. Timing issues are very serious for many applications, and USB doesn't work for many of them. The older serial ports also have timing control lines and such that USB simply doesn't have. I'm not trying to put anything by you. It's just the fact. Read up on serial control, and you will see what I mean.
All of the new digital professional recorders that are used for broadcast, use serial control, either 232, or 485. None use USB.
You may think that these are legecy, but they are not. not in many industries.
It's true that parallel is used much less, but even it is still being used on data loggers and other equipment.
I wasn't "dragged" into this any more than you were.
Just I'd chime in on the video card problem. The driver problem is OpenGL on the Mac versus DirectX on the PC. There are two different interfaces to use the card and of course the relatively small Mac market which leads to a smaller still market for a Mac gamer who can afford a workstation class video card which costs almost as much as the computer itself. Of course there are relatively few games for the Mac OS X platform. Your typical user, even a Photoshop or Final Cut Pro user has little need for a fancy video card. They need lots of fast RAM, disk space and fast CPUs to process all that data. They do have a need for large displays, so a dual-link DVI card with enough VRAM should do. [/QUOTE]
Pretty much all video cards use both. some of the biggest games have been, and still are Open/GL based.
It's easy for you guys who never use equipment that requires these interfaces, because you really don't know much about it. You just deal with the computer as is, and some do some programming work for stuff in the computer industry itself, but not these sophisticated pieces of biomedical equipment and such. If you did, you'd know.
You're talking about a niche market within a niche market: Niche^2. It's unjustifiable...it's like me asking for a built-in NES cartridge loader so I can download the the many cartridge ROMs I collect to my computer so I can play them on an emulator.
Just buy the PCI cards that you need and be done with it. No need to put 2 ports that will be used by 1% of the already very small Mac user base.
Comments
Originally posted by melgross
New equipment still uses this, and will for many years. Serial control is standard in many industries. From audio recorders to genome sequencers.
There's quite a bit of equipment out there.
http://www.mks.zp.ua/serial-port-monitor.php
http://www.yamaha.co.uk/xg/html/software/s_serial.htm
http://www.quatech.com/catalog/rs232_pcmcia.php
http://www.quatech.com/applications/applications.php
This is just a very small number of links from Google. There are a vast number of devices out there. It's by no means a dead technology.
No, but it's dying and all of those links you pointed at above were Windows only. Some had 'page last updated in 2002'.
I used to write Point of Sale software and that was all standard serial/parallel based hardware apart from IBM's custom serial bus and connectors. At the moment I'm writing Mac/web based POS and warehousing software. You can buy serial kit still but everything so far has also been USB from barcode scanners to RFID printers and receivers to cash drawers and card swipes.
It makes my life a whole lot easier too as dealing with serial comms in old POS systems was a pain in the arse and with the USB kit we have now the new system is almost entirely web based with a little bit of Applescript to interface with barcode printers.
So saying we still need serial and parallel ports is not true. YOU may want them but 99.9% of people would rather not have them.
I understand the niche uses for it, even if these niche markets are/ are part of billion-dollar industries, there is a 10^-10 likelyhood of Apple putting serial and parallel ports in the Mac Pro.
People that need serial and parallel for old mice and printers, and other devices such as the test equipment that you mention, yes, almost all PC motherboards still have them. But screw it, it ain't gonna be in the Mac Pro if we have a say about it...!!
BTW I'm pissed that FW400 lost out to USB2.0 - FireWire not only sounded cooler but it was overall better.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by melgross
What you're showing is still only a subset of what Hp is offering. It's convenient to ignore that fact....Never state what Apple will do, and never put a price on it. The best you can do is to say that you think it would be a good idea for it.
Yeah it seems like a lot of people are really trying to price out Xeon Woodcrest systems now that they're in the market and available for config on sites like Dell. It's an interesting excercise, always good to see what others are doing, rather than having one's head up the apple ass all the time
[QUOTE]Originally posted by melgross
Apple doesn't offer that board at all, and the ones that come with the machine are cheaper game boards. I bet you can get ANY board for the Hp.
Same old story, unfortunately. The limited choice in video cards. Is it that hard to write drivers for a more expanded choice of video cards? Probably not for the 2D, but I guess seamless 3D via OpenGL is where the drivers consume budget to write for.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by melgross
If you happen to be about right, it's just luck. everyone comes out with a prediction of what Apple will do. someone has to be lucky. But it means nothing.
We should start some sort of jackpot to see who gets closest to the final model announced. US$5 each to enter, the more join in, the bigger the jackpot. Now where's that gambling website I just made...
[QUOTE]Originally posted by melgross
That 3 year onsite warranty is worth $300 by itself. When you add Apple's extended one to the price it still isn't quite as good.
I've taken your line here a bit out of context but I think Apple's extended warranty is worthwhile. The price of a single component failure like the logic board or screen is covered already by the AppleCare in the 2nd and 3rd years. I say there is an average of 2.5 component failures in 3 years of an Apple machine. If you don't get the extended AppleCare, you just gotta hope all those 2.5 component failures happen in your first year. Lets assume best-case scenario of 1 component failure on average in 3 years for any Mac. It's a game of insurance risk then - either you hope that it happens in the first year, or the component that fails costs less, including labour, to fix, then the price of Extended Applecare. If you're unlucky and get 2 component failures in 3 years, let's say if both happen in the 2nd and 3rd year, then your looking at "might as well have got the Extended Applecare, and peace of mind".
Originally posted by melgross
Apple has always offered serial ports. Until they went to USB.
You and I *both* know we were talking about the legacy serial and parallel ports commonly found on PCs. Don't pull that context-switch game on me to try to prove a point.
edit: if you didn't want to be dragged in this conversation you shouldn't have included the HP's serial and parallel ports as part of the "zomg wow, what a deal" list you created earlier.
Originally posted by sunilraman
Originally posted by melgross
Apple doesn't offer that board at all, and the ones that come with the machine are cheaper game boards. I bet you can get ANY board for the Hp.
Same old story, unfortunately. The limited choice in video cards. Is it that hard to write drivers for a more expanded choice of video cards? Probably not for the 2D, but I guess seamless 3D via OpenGL is where the drivers consume budget to write for.
Just I'd chime in on the video card problem. The driver problem is OpenGL on the Mac versus DirectX on the PC. There are two different interfaces to use the card and of course the relatively small Mac market which leads to a smaller still market for a Mac gamer who can afford a workstation class video card which costs almost as much as the computer itself. Of course there are relatively few games for the Mac OS X platform. Your typical user, even a Photoshop or Final Cut Pro user has little need for a fancy video card. They need lots of fast RAM, disk space and fast CPUs to process all that data. They do have a need for large displays, so a dual-link DVI card with enough VRAM should do.
Originally posted by BradMacPro
macosrumors.com is reporting that the first Intel based Mac Pro models with have Conroe (AKA Core 2 Duo) and Kentsfield (AKA Core 2 Extreme) processors. That means no quad processors the first go round, but there should be rapid (quarterly) upgrades to eventually include Woodcrest. see http://www.macosrumors.com/20060723A1.php
If MOSR reported the sky was blue, I wouldn't believe it.
Problems with that scenario:
Kentsfield isn't out until late 2006 (November)
Kentsfield != Core 2 Extreme
Kentsfield is quad-core.
Once Kentsfield comes out, Clovertown comes with it, making Woodcrest 2nd-tier.
This is the MOSR which is predicting Crossfired X1900XTXs in the next Macbook Pro. This is the MOSR which originally thought Conroe was Quad-core. Don't take them seriously.
Core 2 Extreme is just a Conroe on steroids.
So the Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 has a faster clockspeed of 2.93GHz than the 2.66Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo E6700.
That's all.
Originally posted by gar
Kentsfield is NOT Core 2 Extreme.
Core 2 Extreme is just a Conroe on steroids.
Certainly the C2EE will be high end Conroes at first, but my understanding is that Kentsfield will be the next Core 2 Extreme when it is first released.
Originally posted by BradMacPro
macosrumors.com is reporting that the first Intel based Mac Pro models with have Conroe (AKA Core 2 Duo) and Kentsfield (AKA Core 2 Extreme) processors. That means no quad processors the first go round, but there should be rapid (quarterly) upgrades to eventually include Woodcrest. see http://www.macosrumors.com/20060723A1.php
You know, something like this wouldn't be that bad of an idea. Apple could very easily sell "Mac Pro" machines in the 1499 to 2499 range very easily (ie, with margin) and they'll be very attractive machines.
Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.4 GHz Conroe)
1067 MHz FSB
512 MB DDR2-667
256 MB GeForce 6600
160 GB SATA
$1499
Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.67 GHz Conroe)
1067 MHz FSB
1 GB DDR2-667
256 MB GeForce 7800
250 GB SATA
$1999
2.93 GHz Kentsfield
1067 MHz FSB
1 GB DDR2-667
256 MB GeForce 7800
250 GB SATA
$2499
If they want, they can even have for an ultimate system with:
2S Xeon 5160 (3 GHz Woodcrest)
1333 MH dual FSB
1 GB FB-DIMM
512 MB GeForce 7800
500 GB SATA
$3499
That's assuming Intel is willing to ship a Kentsfield CPU 2 to 3 months early for Apple.
Originally posted by onlooker
I think THT is loosing it.
MacOSRumors is a farce. Plain and simple. I like THT's line-up. I don't think the Kentsfield is realistic, of course, but it's a good placeholder for the high end system which will undoubtedly be 2.93GHz. I don't think Apple will mix Core 2 Duo and Xeon 5100's in the Mac Pro line. My guess is that they will be all Xeon 5100's with an "ultimate" two dual core processor system at the very top (quad), like THT predicts.
Originally posted by aegisdesign
No, but it's dying and all of those links you pointed at above were Windows only. Some had 'page last updated in 2002'.
I used to write Point of Sale software and that was all standard serial/parallel based hardware apart from IBM's custom serial bus and connectors. At the moment I'm writing Mac/web based POS and warehousing software. You can buy serial kit still but everything so far has also been USB from barcode scanners to RFID printers and receivers to cash drawers and card swipes.
It makes my life a whole lot easier too as dealing with serial comms in old POS systems was a pain in the arse and with the USB kit we have now the new system is almost entirely web based with a little bit of Applescript to interface with barcode printers.
So saying we still need serial and parallel ports is not true. YOU may want them but 99.9% of people would rather not have them.
It's really not dying yet. At some point it will, but not now. There was ONE page dated 2002. The others are all current.
The fact that these are not Mac anymore is the point I brought up. One link shows how to repin for 232 from 422. Done all of the time.
Originally posted by sunilraman
Yeah, please, excuse the french, but F**K serial and parallel ports. Gone. Game Over. Ancient History. Buried. Lost. Discarded. Burnt up in the Atmosphere at Reentry. Get the picture?
I understand the niche uses for it, even if these niche markets are/ are part of billion-dollar industries, there is a 10^-10 likelyhood of Apple putting serial and parallel ports in the Mac Pro.
People that need serial and parallel for old mice and printers, and other devices such as the test equipment that you mention, yes, almost all PC motherboards still have them. But screw it, it ain't gonna be in the Mac Pro if we have a say about it...!!
BTW I'm pissed that FW400 lost out to USB2.0 - FireWire not only sounded cooler but it was overall better.
It's easy for you guys who never use equipment that requires these interfaces, because you really don't know much about it. You just deal with the computer as is, and some do some programming work for stuff in the computer industry itself, but not these sophisticated pieces of biomedical equipment and such. If you did, you'd know.
I'm gonna pick up this one... Hi Mel
Quote:
Originally posted by melgross
That 3 year onsite warranty is worth $300 by itself. When you add Apple's extended one to the price it still isn't quite as good.
I've taken your line here a bit out of context but I think Apple's extended warranty is worthwhile. The price of a single component failure like the logic board or screen is covered already by the AppleCare in the 2nd and 3rd years. I say there is an average of 2.5 component failures in 3 years of an Apple machine. If you don't get the extended AppleCare, you just gotta hope all those 2.5 component failures happen in your first year. Lets assume best-case scenario of 1 component failure on average in 3 years for any Mac. It's a game of insurance risk then - either you hope that it happens in the first year, or the component that fails costs less, including labour, to fix, then the price of Extended Applecare. If you're unlucky and get 2 component failures in 3 years, let's say if both happen in the 2nd and 3rd year, then your looking at "might as well have got the Extended Applecare, and peace of mind".
I don't recall offhand, but does Applecare have a 3 year onsite service?
Originally posted by melgross
I don't recall offhand, but does Applecare have a 3 year onsite service?
I don't think there is an onsite service for consumer purchases if that's what your asking.
Originally posted by kim kap sol
You and I *both* know we were talking about the legacy serial and parallel ports commonly found on PCs. Don't pull that context-switch game on me to try to prove a point.
edit: if you didn't want to be dragged in this conversation you shouldn't have included the HP's serial and parallel ports as part of the "zomg wow, what a deal" list you created earlier.
USB is VERY different from the older 232, 422, and 485 serial ports. USB is packet based. Timing issues are very serious for many applications, and USB doesn't work for many of them. The older serial ports also have timing control lines and such that USB simply doesn't have. I'm not trying to put anything by you. It's just the fact. Read up on serial control, and you will see what I mean.
All of the new digital professional recorders that are used for broadcast, use serial control, either 232, or 485. None use USB.
You may think that these are legecy, but they are not. not in many industries.
It's true that parallel is used much less, but even it is still being used on data loggers and other equipment.
I wasn't "dragged" into this any more than you were.
Originally posted by BradMacPro
Just I'd chime in on the video card problem. The driver problem is OpenGL on the Mac versus DirectX on the PC. There are two different interfaces to use the card and of course the relatively small Mac market which leads to a smaller still market for a Mac gamer who can afford a workstation class video card which costs almost as much as the computer itself. Of course there are relatively few games for the Mac OS X platform. Your typical user, even a Photoshop or Final Cut Pro user has little need for a fancy video card. They need lots of fast RAM, disk space and fast CPUs to process all that data. They do have a need for large displays, so a dual-link DVI card with enough VRAM should do. [/QUOTE]
Pretty much all video cards use both. some of the biggest games have been, and still are Open/GL based.
Originally posted by melgross
It's easy for you guys who never use equipment that requires these interfaces, because you really don't know much about it. You just deal with the computer as is, and some do some programming work for stuff in the computer industry itself, but not these sophisticated pieces of biomedical equipment and such. If you did, you'd know.
You're talking about a niche market within a niche market: Niche^2. It's unjustifiable...it's like me asking for a built-in NES cartridge loader so I can download the the many cartridge ROMs I collect to my computer so I can play them on an emulator.
Just buy the PCI cards that you need and be done with it. No need to put 2 ports that will be used by 1% of the already very small Mac user base.