Hmmm, I have wireless, inferread, wired networking, modem, firewire 2
firewire ports even, and honestly I had no com ports noticeably used, maybe
my modem was on one but I forget which one that was but beyond that it was
wide open. That's strange. Of course, depending on what you're trying to do
you can use 1 and 3, and 2 and 4 now much easier then you used to be able to
though I don't do it but it is easier to do now with out worrying as much as
you used to have to in the past. There are tricks around it too, I've done
it but that's was too advanced to explain. That is the goal though, to
outdate serial ports and all and just have USB for everything which is not a
bad idea except that outdates what uses a serial port now.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry Neufeld" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 5:50 PM
Subject: Re: laptops with u s b to com port converters


> Hi John.
>
> Well, I was not talking about irq's but, in effect, they are very much
> involved.  Com ports 1 & 3, for example, use the same irq, as do 2 & 4.
> So,
> unless the operating system gets very sophisticated and manages to share
> those irqs in an exotic way, 3 can't be used if 1 is active, 2 unusable if
> 4
> is being used. And, yes, this laptop comes with about everything you can
> think of in terms of its ability to talk to the outside work, from
> firewire
> to u s b to infra red to wireless network, the works, all very nice unless
> you want a functional com port. I suppose the rationale, not unreasonable,
> is that the new u s b 2s, so lightening fast, will soon make rs232 ports
> absolutely obsolete.
>