Legacy connectors, are they of any value to the enthusiast of today?

[aidanjt]

This is something that has been bugging me for quite some time, for years motherboard manufacturers have been continuing to add legacy interfaces to their new hardware. But the question is, are they really needed?

• As far as input devices are concerned, HID-enabled hardware has been available for years via USB. So there goes PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors, we just made room for 3 or 4 USB ports on the back I/O pannel for the keyboard, mouse, and some arbitrary devices.
  
• As far as PATA goes, SATA optical drives have been available for over 2 years, hard drives for much longer. That can go, we just made room for 6 SATA ports.
  
• Floppy, my God, my pet peeve. This interface has been dragged on, beaten to death, and obliterated for so long it makes Duke Nuke 'em Forever look like it isn't vapourware. When was the last time any of us honestly used the floppy drive when we had other choices? For me, that was over 6 years ago since I pulled out and dusted off a floppy drive. Even with loading RAID/ACHI drivers for Windows XP, I'd sooner install XP on a single disk, slipstream the drivers, and reinstall with the native drivers. In that time, I've also been using writable CDs and USB sticks for BIOS updates, all board manufacturers could offer the same ability. Lets get rid of that and make room for another 4 or 6 SATA connectors.
  
• DSub 15-pin VGA, specifically on mATX boards with intergrated GPUs, just go away already, nobody in their right mind buys VGA monitors anymore, haven't for years, and more importantly DVI->VGA dongles (which we could swim around in from the bundled ones in GPU purchases we've made since 6 years ago) can service those of us who still have VGA monitors.
  
• RS232 (Serial port), yes, unbelievabley I *still* see these on motherboards being sold *today*. The last time I even saw a serial port modem in use, I was still losing and growing new teeth. Good grief.
  
• Parallel port, I still see these cropping up from time to time. Everyone has either usb printers or some decent laser printer with an ethernet port. Bye bye.

As far as I can see, there's no value to the user for any of these ports to be added onto mainstream motherboards, sure they may be useful to some who still has legacy kit, but I dare say they'd be a nieche group, and would mostly use their older computers to interface with these devices. And with all that legacy junk purged, motherboard manufacturers can make room for some truely innovative new technologies. Some years ago, Abit took the bull by the horns and released a board without legacy connectors, but I can only gather that it didn't take off so well, as they haven't attempted since, but are things different now?.. should they take the innitative again? So what say you, fellow hexites?.. Legacy begone?

[Will404]

I can see what you mean, but there are several points which you should consider. Firstly with IDE, many people allready have IDE HDD's and optical drives, which when the build there new PC will move onto it, so they needent buy a new DVD burner, and can move all there old docs accross easily.

D-Sub - many new TFT moniters are still sold with this interfrace, smaller and lower quality ones mainly, but still... a good second moniter.

There is also the issue of the space for wireing and circutry on the MOBO, can you fit the circutry for 6 SATA2 ports in the place of one IDE port - and are the chipsets compatoble with 14 or 20 SATA/SATA2 ports or drives. + who needs that many

RS232 I do think could now be completely wiped out though, having never used one in my life (15years old), and parrellel are too a bit dated

[TooNice]

I still use the serial port for the odd time that I need a direct connection with the router or the UPS. Admittedly, both are antiques, but I don't make it a habit of throwing out all working component just because I am an 'enthusiast'.

My floppy drive stopped working for years, and for most part I don't miss it that much. That said, I know many who do not know how to slipstream, or have the inclination of learning how to.

The rest, probably won't miss them much. Well, I may need a parallel port one day to shift some data from my SyQuest SparQ drive, but that's assuming the thing still works lol.

[dave87]

RS232 - I would keep on the basis it was a pain when I needed one, and my lovely tablet PC at the time, didn't have one. That was for switch administration, but there are also displays that are programmed via the Serial Port. Kinda handy to have one in such a case.

IDE - 1 channel as per existing designs is enough for me, but there are drives that I would have held on to had there not been this limitation.

PS2 - 50/50 on this one, on the one hand, I've got a PS2 KVM which works perfectly, and is actually more reliable than the USB based one that was brought out to replace it. No worries about older BIOSes and USB support, plug in and works.

Parallel - Probably not used this in many, many years, though as one person I was speaking to recently, certain software applications are tuned to one printing or output device. If that is Parallel only, then you are kinda stuffed without a Parallel Port.

The second question, therefore is what they make room for? What is missing from every board sold so far that we could really do with in place of these legacy connectors?

E-SATA - fantastic, but never seen the use. If I want an external drive, I want it either self powered if small enough, or easily removable if bigger. E SATA is just quicker.

SPDIF - Fantastic, but already available on most boards.

More USB? - Why not get a hub, less wires into the back of my PC the better, because they all end up getting tangled.

More Ethernet? - Not really needed past gigabit. 2x1000mb is handy, but very few have an actual need for both.

So internally, what would it free up space for?

Not a huge amount, given the controllers are pretty much always integrated with other features. Yes an extra SATA port may be handy sometimes, but is 6 or 8 not enough already?

[FifthFreedom]

I liked your swimming on VGA -> DVI adaptors imagery. Lol.

As far as I'm concerned your right on all but one of those points, and thats VGA monitors.

There is no reason not to have VGA outputs on GFX Cards and Mobo's aswell as DVI.

If there is a choice, I'd go with DVI only but why not have both?

My brand new Dell £400 24" monitor still has a VGA port so why not make good use of it...

And to behonest, if your getting rid of ports, I'd rather see more USB ports than SATA (6 is enough for me) as I have 10 USB ports on my system and quite often they are actually all in use.

(Keyboard and mouse = 3, Bluetooth = 1, USB HDD = 1, ipod and phone = 2, Headset = 1, Touchscreen monitor = 1, and one for my memory stick when I use it.)

[aidanjt]

I don't mean eliminate the choice of using VGA entirely, but that DVI ports would be better suited since if you're stuck with using a VGA port, you can just attach a DVI->VGA dongle (that we have up to our ears), and job done, you can't, however, do the reverse.

[aidanjt]

I can see what you mean, but there are several points which you should consider. Firstly with IDE, many people allready have IDE HDD's and optical drives, which when the build there new PC will move onto it, so they needent buy a new DVD burner, and can move all there old docs accross easily.

As far as DVD burners go, £16 or so isn't going to knock a dent in your budget when you're building a new PC.

As for PATA HDDs, they'll do fine for old PCs, but can anyone honestly say they have good use for them on modern machines? Plus you can easily move any important stuff from a PATA disk to your new SATA disk with your old machine.

ID-Sub - many new TFT moniters are still sold with this interfrace, smaller and lower quality ones mainly, but still... a good second moniter.

See above.

IThere is also the issue of the space for wireing and circutry on the MOBO, can you fit the circutry for 6 SATA2 ports in the place of one IDE port - and are the chipsets compatoble with 14 or 20 SATA/SATA2 ports or drives. + who needs that many

SATA uses much less pins and motherboard traces. That's one of the many beauties of it. You could easily fit 20 SATA ports and associated controllers on a motherboard without legacy stuff attached. Who'd use them all?.. Anyone using the board as a server could. Also, you don't have to fit every nook and crany with a connector just for the sake of having it there.

[moogle]

They should and yet they shouldn't. They should remove them for high end boards that the enthusiasts buy. You still get the old ide and floppy on the mobos and probably 1 ps/2 keyboard connector. But surely those people who spend £££'s on the board have Sata Raptors most likely or sata and usb keyboards and mice.

[staffsMike]

If people ranting on a forum is the biggest problem that comes from leaving the legacy support in then I'm sure they will continue to add it in for many years to come

Serial ports were a must on all laptops I bought at my last job as usb to serial adapters were too unreliable..

[aidanjt]

How many of those laptop users have actually used the serial port?

Stupid policies doesn't mean actual use.

[staffsMike]

The bulk of them.. they are still using, maintaining and creating hardware products with serial ports as that is what customers wanted.

It wasn't policy it was a demand! lol

[aidanjt]

That's sick

[shaithis]

PS/2 ports: You sometimes still need these. After a windows repair or a changing of motherboard etc, Windows seems to not update the USB devices in device manager and you get left at the windows login screen with no control of your PC. Been stuck here a few times and a PS/2 keyboard has seriously bailed me out. Until Microsoft fully resolve this issue, I would hate to not have a PS/2 port.

PATA: Yeah it could go soon, the problem is there are still a LOT of people with PATA devices, it needs a bit more time first.


Floppy: Again it needs more time. So many are sticking with XP, that means the old "F6 to load additional drivers" will require a floppy. Also, many don't have a motherboard that is flashable via the BIOS or a bootable USB device.


VGA: Totally agree. The dongles are so prevalent that this shouldn't be an issue.


RS232: Can be handy for flashing certain (non-PC) devices. Has it uses still for a lot of people.


Parallel port: Agree, can't remember the last time I saw anyone using the parallel port.

[aidanjt]

PS/2 ports: You sometimes still need these. After a windows repair or a changing of motherboard etc, Windows seems to not update the USB devices in device manager and you get left at the windows login screen with no control of your PC. Been stuck here a few times and a PS/2 keyboard has seriously bailed me out. Until Microsoft fully resolve this issue, I would hate to not have a PS/2 port.

Never been a problem for me. Probably because I've never done anything as daft as try to use the same Windows install on a new motherboard. Plus, safemode works wonders for loading the bare minimum of drivers.

PATA: Yeah it could go soon, the problem is there are still a LOT of people with PATA devices, it needs a bit more time first.

Again, less than £16 for a PATA DVD burner. Not breaking the bank compared to the money for the other components of a new build.

Floppy: Again it needs more time. So many are sticking with XP, that means the old "F6 to load additional drivers" will require a floppy. Also, many don't have a motherboard that is flashable via the BIOS or a bootable USB device.

XP: slipstream additional drivers.
BIOS updates: bootable CDs and USB sticks. Bitch at your motherboard manufacturer if they're too useless to develop proper zero-enduser-effort flashing tools, but you can make your own flashing environment without them.

I thought I already pointed those out?.. oh well.

RS232: Can be handy for flashing certain (non-PC) devices. Has it uses still for a lot of people.

It's been a longgggg time since I've seen a device that can only use the serial port for firmware upgrades, anyone that designs a piece of hardware that uses it today needs to be fired and/or castrated to ensure their stupidity isn't propagated through the species.

Two points you raise pretty much highlight how useless Windows XP is with hardware interaction. I'm not saying you're intrinsically wrong, I'm just saying we could do without, and the reasons they still exist would drop off very quickly with all this legacy junk.

[Funkstar]

They should and yet they shouldn't. They should remove them for high end boards that the enthusiasts buy. You still get the old ide and floppy on the mobos and probably 1 ps/2 keyboard connector. But surely those people who spend £££'s on the board have Sata Raptors most likely or sata and usb keyboards and mice.

Just waht I was going to say

I can completely understand having these legacy connectors on reference boards and mainstream systems, but on specialist enthusiast boards I don't see the point.

Ironically, small systems line the mini, nano and pico systems maid be VIA are probably more likely to utilise these legacy ports, even though they desperately need the space they would free up. The reason for this? embeded systems. Although with the interest in SFF systems, I think we will see more distinction between the industrial designs and the commercial.

[aidanjt]

I just had an idea, the motherboard manufacturers could knock together an AIB for legacy connections that they could sell to customers that still have an actual need for them, rather than a sentimental attachment.