Bluetooth And The Common Motherboard

Just say no to Apple writes "Computers seem to be on the precipice of a new chapter with things like Serial ATA and now bluetooth showing up as standard equipment. Of course the bluetooth kit that comes with this board is really tiny, which makes me wonder if you might be able to integrate it into a small remote device... But anyway, if a computer upgrade is on the horizon, have a look at this Epox board review and the bluetooth gear it uses."

How much legacy should we carry?

[deragon]

As time goes by, more and more ports/connectors add up on my motherboards. When are we going to get ride of ps/2 buses, parallels and serial ports?

So now we would have:

bluetooth
parallel port
serial ports
Serial IDE
Parallel IDE
Firewire
ps2 buses
USB
-- Next ones are not on motherboards, but still...---
Analog joystick port (gameport)
VGA output
Audio ports
Ethernet

Am I missing a port? Keeping legacy ports does add cost on the systems...

I wish we could go by with firewire only. Everything on firewire. HDs, modem, joystick, keyboard... Only analog output like Video and Audio would remain. BTW, most motherboards do not come with Firewire on, but I bet there must be a few out there with it.

small amount of power

[johnjones]

bluetooth has always been about low power

this meassn that it can be put into phones
and washing machines, fridges, microwaves and of course keyboards, mice and microphones/speakers

Microsoft next keyboards are to be wireless and bluetooth

bluetooth is about short range low power 802.11b is about high power, long range and high bandwidth

bluetooth is pretty sweet its really the software that holding things back because their are lots of devices now

it terms of volume more bluetooth devices are made each day than 802.11b in a year
(pinch of salt bluetooth sig no. but a good idea about the volume)

regards

John Jones

Re:How much legacy should we carry?

[Myriad]

As time goes by, more and more ports/connectors add up on my motherboards. When are we going to get ride of ps/2 buses, parallels and serial ports?

So now we would have:
bluetooth parallel port serial ports Serial IDE Parallel IDE Firewire ps2 buses USB

It better not be anytime soon! I happen to have rather a lot of money invested in external devices which happen to use these legacy devices you are so wanting to be rid of.

Such as you ask? I have multiple KVMS switches for handling multiple monitors connected to multiple systems. These all use standard VGA and serial/PS2 ports for mouse/keyboard. One KVMS can run $200-$1000 easily - and that's before buying all the cabling for them. Heck, a few of 'em still use the large DIN connectors for keyboard and 9 pin serial for the mouse.

My printer likes Parallel and I like my printer - it works just fine. Now I'm supposed to drop another few hundred bucks on a printer?

My UPS's use serial - am I to buy a new set of battery backups because my current ones can no longer notify the server that time is running out?

Oop, lets not foget the external diagnostic LCD which happens to run on Parallel.

Heck, I even use the Joystick port for some very basic Midi stuff from time to time.

So, keep your grubby hands off my ports!

(just because it's not the latest and greatest doesn't mean it's not important to people)

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. All that high frequency RF noise wouldn't affect the sound "quality" at all, either. Not to mention I bet your digital CD's and FLAC compressed audio sounds great with those analog components in there. No doubt it magically makes your audio "richer" and "warmer"...

By the way, would you like to buy some speaker cables? $50 a foot. It'll make your $400 mini stereo in your front room sound like a symphony hall!