Isn\'t it about time for USB?

I don't understand the silly hoopla over USB. It's a marginally enhanced RS-232. It's not cheap, it's not RF-tolerant and it's not OS-independent. Why would anybody want to regress that far?

10 Megabit per second Ethernet has been around in its present form since about 1989. It's proven, there are no stupid crossover cables, every operating system from DOS 3.3 (Mac 4.1...unix v.blahblahbla...) onward can handle it, and companies have to GIVE away the interface cards for it. And it's been on the back of PCs longer than USB, and does NOT take processor resources to keep it going.

The only ham rigs I'm familiar with that have serial interfaces are the older Icoms. That's the CI-V interface. I built a CI-V to USB converter for my old Icom and it works fine. What this guy is moaning about, I don't know. If you're really hung up on USB, put a cheap little converter on your rig and be done with it.

Do you also ask your PC vendor to include a blank floppy disk with the PC? Can't you figure these things out without being spoon fed?

The things people whine about...

 

Most of your comments are valid, Matt. One of the reasons I put this out there was to LEARN, myself. I also almost added 10BaseT as an option, but I did not want to confuse the issue. Oh, Well.



Two things...
1) I am not sure it qualifies as a "Whine"
2) As far as I am aware, most moden rigs, including my FT-1000MP and several Kenwoods, have had RS-232 interfaces.



True, OS dependancy is an issue for several guys who are still using DOS loggers, but many hams aren't. I am unaware that USB is RF sensative. It seems fine around my shack.



There is no such thing as the perfect solution. Hell, I'd love it if all my gear could communicate Infra-Red or RF Wireless!! I just want to take the least amount of gear with me on my next DXpedition.



Thanks for the input. Have a good Holiday!!

 

Real coffee or Java?

You guys are pretty busy hooking
up things to a ham rig.....except the antenna!

Anybody remember when we used to do that?
Seems like a long, long time ago.
(Sorry, I just had to have some virtual fun)

Best 73,
Dennis

 

IEEE 1394 or Firewire as it is often refered to would be a better choice than USB.
It is fast at 400 mb/s, works over a variety of
topologies, and is truly bidrectional peer-to-peer. It is supported by later Windows varients, Linux, and Mac O/S. But more important, it is an
open standard with well-defined parameters.
Although the PC industry hasn't raced to embrace it like USB, it is coming along and a few m/b
manufacturers are starting to incorporate 1394
ports on their products. It can be implemented on
any PCI bus system with an add-on card provided
the resident O/S supports it.

....Orange

 

It's a machine they came up with so you can send and receive CW without having to learn the code!

 

do you know if i can modifield my old 133 computer to usb port?
i only have serial and parellel ports and know oll need usb

 

I agree, I would rather use ethernet.... But I guess this would give hacking your radio a whole new meaning

73 and good DX

Happy Holidays !

 

CPU stands for "central processing unit," and actually refers to the chip the makes all that other stuff go. There are those who, by extension, refer to the box that houses the CPU, along with all the other stuff inside, as a CPU. The rest of us call that box a "computer".

73, Creede

 

A machine devised to automate and make more efficient the wasting of time. hi

73, Creede

 

on my 302 meter DOS APRS Gate, on my DOS FBB
BBS and my DOS APRSDAT rig. Also, DOS on the
802 meter packet gate. No reason to tie up
expensive 'puters on jobs that DOS 6.22 does FB.
Got less tha $100 in the four (1 a Pentium 75
and the other 3 Pentium 133). Why use Windows
when DOS does will do just fine???

HAPPY HOLIDAZE!

73 de Ronnie

 

would my BBS, 2 gateways and APRSDAT station
operare if I replace a hundred dollars worth
of 'puters with Twentyfour hundred dollars
(for four) worth of 'puters???????

73 de Ronnie

 

Wrong!


There are several problems with Jason's assertions:


1. While USB 2 has a nominal speed of 480 Mbps, it only goes as fast as the slowest device on the bus - so if you have ANY USB 1 devices (12 Mbps), EVERYTHING goes at 12 Mbps. Contrast this to FireWire, which was designed from the start to handle devices of different speeds.


2. USB is a "star" network, which means that everything has to go through the CPU. So not only does this start impacting your system speed, but device-to-device transfer goes down to an absolute max of 240 Mbps. Contrast FireWire, where a device-to-device transfer takes place almost completely independent of the CPU (which only gets "administrative" interrupts for things like "transfer done"), and thus comes much closer to its theoretical bandwidth.


3. FireWire actually has three speeds already designed in - 400 Mbps, 800 Mbps and 1.6Gbps, and equipment for FireWire 2 (medium speed) should start hitting the market in February. And, BTW, plugging in a FireWire 1 device doesn't slow down a FireWire 2 device, since this capability was designed from the start.


USB would be a great thing to see on lots of ham equipment, but frankly I think that having FireWire would be more useful in the long run, since the entire A/V world seems to be going that way. But USB 2? It's going the way of Betamax.

 

Ham equipment is by and large old technology. Why are we putting a 400+MBps interface on equipment that can only transmit/receive at 9600 Baud? That's serious overkill. It's just as hilarious as using a 2GHz machine with 768MB RAM to type a letter.

IMHO we need to increase the data speed to something reasonable before we go jumping to get a high speed interface like USB or firewire on ham equipment. No one surfs at 9600 baud anymore. I certainly don't.

 

There are a number of cards you can plug into your computer to give you USB ports. Of course you need to have an open slot of the proper type (PCI, EISA or whatever it uses).





You might also check your BIOS before you boot up and look to see if it already has a setting to turn USB on or off. If you do you already have a USB connector on your motherboard somewhere. All you would need would be a connector you could plug into the motherboard and onto the backplane.





Of course none of this will do you any good if you don't have support in your operating system for USB. Basically, if you're using Windows, that means Windows 98 or later. Anything earlier than that and you're probably out of luck If you're using Linux, you'll probably want to upgrade to a new kernel (2.4 series, most likely).




73, Creede

 

Learn before you talk. Your computer has one small item called the CPU - the Central Processing Unit. It is where the main processing of instructions is performed. The CPU is mounted on the motherboard along with memory and periphrials, then this is placed inside a CASE, also often referred to as box, with the drives and power supplies. If you are calling the case a cpu, you have no idea what you are talking about.


My qualifications for knowing this? I have a BS and MS in computer science, several years in the computer field, and a fair bit of hardware design experience. I've administered networks with over 1,000 computers, and written software which is used on much larger networks.


What you are doing by pretending the case is a cpu is roughly analogous to calling an entire radio the preamp.