A Fond Look at Some Obsolete Ports 528
StealMyWiFi writes "C-NET.co.uk has a lighthearted look at ten of the best obsolete ports. The biggest surprise is that C-NET claims Firewire is obsolete, which will come as a surprise to the millions of people worldwide who are still using it, especially in light of the story that Firewire is due to get a massive speed boost! The same could be said for their claims about SCSI, although from a consumer point of view I guess that's fairer."
Re:SCSI isn't what it used to be (Score:3, Insightful)
Cheers,
Very unfair to SCART (Score:5, Insightful)
Also it was bi-directionnal : a composite signal could travel from the TV to the peripheral and be simultaneously fed back from the peripheral to the TV. This allowed over-the-air pay-TV with a de-scrambler box that was simply plugged in on one of the SCARTs.
This is going to sound strange... (Score:5, Insightful)
Firewire's not obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, the recording industry, where Firewire is quite popular, still use god-awful MIDI.
SCSI? It just changed its face. (Score:5, Insightful)
* ATAPI is SCSI over ATA - all non-SATA (or non-SCSI
* SATA is SCSI over a special serial cable. Meaning - only obsolete PATA disks are non-SCSI. All CD drives are SCSI this or another way.
* USB Storage (pendrives, external drives etc) are all SCSI.
Essentially mostly every mass storage device you connect to the computer is SCSI nowadays.
Re:modem port? (Score:3, Insightful)
FCC mandate (Score:5, Insightful)
Firewire is getting to be like Beta (Score:2, Insightful)
No Centronics or RS232. (Score:5, Insightful)
Firewire dead? (Score:4, Insightful)
They plan on doubling the speed to 6.4GB/s -- google for S6400. Also, the new standard(s)
extend firwire so as to allow it to operate over other mediums, such as Ethernet, Coax, and Fiber.
Yes, Firewire looks really dead to me. No matter what country a Cnet editor comes from, he/she's
probably an idiot. (eg. why didn't they include 32-bit PCI?)
jdb2
Re:Seriously, since Sata does SCSI have any benefi (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very unfair to SCART (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it would be fairer to say that the Europeans were where they should have been at that point in time, while we were twenty years behind.
Re:Firewire's not obsolete (Score:3, Insightful)
Not been using much in the way of tech recently? USB = Cable.
Regardless of specification, USB has a massive, almost ubiquitous presence, which translates to an unstoppable inertia. Only something which is 10x better, but can use the same sockets stands a chance. Which brings me to your other howler-
>USB 3 will probably be largely or completely stillborn
Are you the first
Re:C-Net (Score:2, Insightful)
obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)
Article misssed the point of SCSI entirely (Score:4, Insightful)
MTBF
SCSI drives have generally had 10x higher MTBF ratings, which means a lot when you're installing a drive in a server that needs to run for five nines. Sure, the difference in access is great, but its really the longevity that counts. Your gaming box can cope with a drive that is only supposed to stand up to a year or two of usage - you'll need more storage for your porn by then anyways - but server hard drives need to be able to take a beating constantly, and longer.
That was why I was always willing to dish out the extra coin for SCSI drives for my servers back when I was an admin.
Re:Annoying 'article', here's the list (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:C-Net (Score:5, Insightful)
Has obsolete been redefined?
And where is RS232? What about midi/joystick ports? This is just blatant C-Net karma^Hpagerank whoring and it was allowed in without a second thought.
Re:modem port? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or, more apt, what percentage of the US population lives in an area without DSL or cable internet coverage? I'll bet it's smaller than the percentage that use FireWire.
WiFi is the new modem.
Re:Firewire's not obsolete (Score:1, Insightful)
Original designs for USB was one chip; firewire was six. The only way USB 'beats' firewire is in availability.
Parallel Ports are still useful!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Looking at it now, something that would have needed not much else than an old printer cable, LED's and some diodes now would require a micro controller for USB interfacing and a bunch of other components, not to mention added programming complexity. And all those "USB to Parallel port" devices only work with printers, and do not function like a real Parallel port at all. I guess you could argue that the Parallel ports have become a niche, but I would not say that they are obsolete just yet.
or (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Very unfair to SCART (Score:4, Insightful)
They got it in eventually in HDMI v1.2a, according to wikipedia (the CEC channel [wikipedia.org]). Of course, it's completely optional and hence I've yet to meet a piece of eqpt that supports it.
This may also have something to do with it:
Muppets.
It's like they were trying to outdo Bluetooth in the 'dead in the water launch' awards.
Re:modem port? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:C-Net (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Firewire's not obsolete (Score:3, Insightful)
Way to quote out of context.
1394b Firewire as implemented by NASA is a secure local bus that provides time accurate signaling and data transfer. Something which no other local bus technology could provide at that speed.
I appreciate your snarkyness, but typically, NASA doesn't choose stuff on a whim.
Re:C-Net (Score:5, Insightful)
qotd 17/udp Quote of the Day
gopher 70/tcp Gopher
finger 79/tcp Finger
pcmail-srv 158/tcp PCMail Server
audit 182/tcp Unisys Audit SITP
Re:C-Net (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the port that computer makers keep trying to force into obsolescence, despite the fact that we still desperately need them to talk to all the tons of legacy industrial equipment installed all over the world in the last 20 years. Don't encourage them, I need my RS232 ports.
Oh yeah, USB to RS232 works, sometimes.
Re:Very unfair to SCART (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:C-Net (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that I think of it, it's really surprising that I didn't wind up in jail when I was a kid.
I think I'll install fingerd on my WRT54G and stuff some random information into it, just for old time's sake.
Re:PS/2 not obsolete (Score:2, Insightful)
PHB: "So guys, we've built this thing for connecting mice and keyboards, now we just need to decide what shape to make the connectors... brainstorm?"
Mike from engineering: "Maybe we should make them trapezoidal so that they can easily be plugged without looking"
Bob from marketing: "You know what would make a great value-add? If it were shaped like a circle, because circles are the future. "
PHB: "Go on Bob, I like where this is going..."
Bob: "And if we make sure that it plugs in at the back of the computer so that you have to pull it out every time you want to plug/unplug it that would force people to see the cool-factor that we've incorporated into it!"
PHB: "I think we have a winner with that one Bob. Mike, you need to stop living in the past. Usability is for chumps."