[Elecraft] Give us a network interface

[Guy Olinger K2AV]

I have a PCI express card with two serial ports on it.  I don't see
PCIX slots going out any time soon. My new Asus mobo has FOUR PCIX
slots in it.  Three full and one short.  I did not need drivers for
the card, Win7 Pro/64 found them, I assigned them com 1&2 in the
hardware management and have had zero problems.  My motherboard has no
serial ports. In contrast, using the USB/serial ports was a series of
wars with a few too-short periods of peace, always interrupted by the
OS.

The problem of insisting on Ham radio equipment manufactures
supporting the patently NON-standard USB standard is driving up
mamufacturer's costs and running into problems every time the OS has
to be patched to get around some security hack. Followed by Wayne
having to upgrade and recertify the Elecraft drivers before the fix
can be distributed.  Microsoft is NOT paying for this stuff.

73, Guy

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Jack Brabham <kz5a at att.net> wrote:
>  From  my perspective, I see serial interfaces as increasingly
> problematic due to unavailability.
>
> PC motherboard manufacturers are dropping serial ports due to a
> widespread lack of use and interest.   And as many have noted, USB to
> serial converters can be a PITA.
>
> My current Mobo, which is about 3 years old and due for replacement this
> winter, has one serial port that exists on some header that is not
> brought out to the rear panel.   Finding a PCI RS-232 serial board for
> it that had Win 7-64 drivers was a challenge.    I only found one.  When
> Win 8 comes around next year the number of supported serial boards could
> easily become zero.  PCI slots are also on the way out, many current
> high end boards now only include one "token" PCI slot with the rest of
> the slots being some flavor of PCI-E
>
> None of the current issue motherboards I'm considering for my next
> station PC include a serial port or more than one PCI slot.
>
> So, I'm sorry for those who find serial ports warm and comforting, but
> they a about to join paper tape punches/readers, 8 inch floppys, and
> CRTs on the list of quaint old technologies that are no longer
> manufactured or supportable.
>
> In the meanwhile, rigs and other station equipment are ever increasingly
> interconnected and interdependent (read "networked").
>
> Clinging to serial ports is not really a viable option going forward,
> neither in terms of providing the desired functionality nor of being
> supported by general market hardware/software suppliers.   TCP/IP over
> Ethernet wouldn't exactly be a giant leap into the future but it is
> already supported by any number of ham applications for networking and
> for internal communications between modules.
>
> In the meanwhile I'm really glad to have LP_Bridge and the MicroHam
> Router so the station works almost like it had a real network.
>
>
> 73 Jack KZ5A
> K3 #4165
>
>
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