Good Morning!

The Dixie Chicks slammed El Presidente for sending our troops 
to Iraq.  CNN's getting blasted for keeping quiet about 
Saddam's regime, and Rodney King just drove his SUV into 
somebody's house.  Yessiree Bob, there sure is a lot of 
controversy floating around these days.

But that ain't nothin' compared to the stink that's going up over 
vanishing RS-232 ports.  That's right, for us gearheads and 
bitbangers, the disappearance of serial ports is a great 
source of frustration, and even rage.

And now our dear and loyal friend Joe Desposito from EE 
Product News gravely disappoints us by proclaiming that 
there is no future for RS-232.  But legions of supporters have 
risen up in defense of the lowly serial port!

Says Joe: "Rarely do I get deluged with responses to this 
column, but the February  issue was an exception.  The 
responses were split--for and against RS-232."

So what about us at B&B Electronics, the company who has 
stood by RS-232 in sickness and in health, in riches and in 
poverty?

Well, we're still standing by it but it ain't like we're waiting for 
the 1980's to come back, you knowwhattamean?

So... what if you've got Windows XP and you ain't got  no 
serial port?

RS-232 to Windows XP: 

Our friends in Redmond have added a new bump in the road 
to adding ports. They claim 15% of blue-screens are caused 
by 3rd party drivers. In response, they've added an ominous 
message to XP - that these drivers may impair or destabilize 
your system.

Don't let that intimidate you.

What does it mean to you? Another button to click during 
installation. To those of us developing hardware and drivers it 
means a new decision and development expense. Developers  
can make that scary message go away by going through a 
round of Microsoft sponsored testing.

But anyway, we've got more than one solution to put ports 
back into your new PC:

RS-232 to USB: USB was Wintel's answer to traditional serial 
ports. We've come up with ways to add one-to-many 232,  
485, 422 ports to your PC using USB.

Need something rugged? We've got isolated versions too.

http://www.bb-elec.com/add_a_port/serial_usb_chart.asp


RS-232 to Ethernet: Networking PC's with Ethernet is old 
news. What's new is that we can use Ethernet to add serial 
ports - and they don't have to be next to your PC, you can 
access these ports from around the world! These innovative 
serial ports reach as far as you can Ping.

http://www.bb-elec.com/add_a_port/serial_ethernet.asp


RS-232 to RS-485: The workhorse of industrial serial 
communications, RS-485 provides a rugged data link, up to 
4000 feet and allows multidropping of 32 devices. Use RS-
232 to RS-485 converters to get the best bang-for-the-buck 
from your scarce serial ports.

http://rs485.bb-elec.com/rs485.htm


RS-232 Optical Isolators: Don't blow up your RS-232 port, 
they're getting hard to find! Optical Isolation is only way to 
protect your serial port from ground loops.

http://www.bb-
elec.com/protect_system/protect_serial_system.asp


Plug-in Cards: Don't forget the old standby. ISA, PCI and 
PCMCIA cards can put ports back inside your PC or laptop. 
Standard, Isolated, 232, 485, 422 are all available.

http://www.bb-elec.com/add_a_port/serial_port.asp


Questions? Comments?  We always love to hear from our 
customers.  Email mailto:support@bb-elec.com and we'll get 
you taken care of.

Sincerely,

Mike Fahrion
B&B Electronics
+++Standing strong in the war against RS-232+++

If you' would like to unsubscribe from this mailing list, please 
use this form -
http://www.bb-
elec.com/econnections/econnections_mgmt.asp#unsubscribe