This B650 motherboard has an RS232 port

[DanceswithUnix]

So I'm building a small Ryzen 7900 based server for work and chose:

https://smile.amazon.co.uk/ASUS-B650...dp/B0BHHY3M7L/

and just had the shock that alongside the 2.5GbE networking and 10Gb USB ports, Thunderbolt etc I have the ability to talk to a modem at 115K2.

Thank you Asus for the trip down memory lane

I can't even remember the last time I used an RS232 port. Probably to talk to some embedded device about 10 years ago.

[Saracen999]

Same for me. It used to be all serial, parallel and/or SCSI here, the latter mainly for HDs, tape/optical drives etc, plus the odd scanner. But that's pretty much been redundantised by USB. The only times I've seen RS232 on new hardware, in probably 15 or 20 years, has been in commercial use where driving specific hardware (like legacy cash drawers) that date back to the 90s, or earlier. I do still have some old (386-era, ish) PCs with RS232 but very much legcy stuff. It's interesting to find out you still can even get it on something like B650.

Somewhere, I think I still have a "kit" of pins, male/female empty plugs, cases etc, for making my own RS232 cables. Memory lane, indeed.

[[GSV]Trig]

We still use RS232's at work as some of the programming leads we use have it, annoyingly we can only use certain types of USB/Serial adapters as well...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I don't see one?

[ik9000]

I don't see one?

it's a board header not on rear panel: https://www.asus.com/motherboards-co...wifi/techspec/

[AGTDenton]

I still deal with them for receipt printers, less & less for barcode scanners & customer displays. Main reason being they just work, no rebooting for drivers or USB issues of printers not being detected, they simply talk directly to the port rather than layers of API.
In certain environments it will not be replaced.
Slowly USB improves for receipt printing but it's far from perfect. However, as more and more shops offer email receipts or just not to have one at all, the need for receipt printers will hopefully be a thing of the past soon.

You will also find ethernet based RS232. The idea here is space saving on the I/o rather than speed. Traditional RS232 ports are just too chunky for slimmer computing.

[Percy1983]

Last R232 a used was my old ups with a USB adapter, my newer ups has USB.

[Saracen999]

I still deal with them for receipt printers, less & less for barcode scanners & customer displays. Main reason being they just work, no rebooting for drivers or USB issues of printers not being detected, they simply talk directly to the port rather than layers of API.
In certain environments it will not be replaced.
Slowly USB improves for receipt printing but it's far from perfect. However, as more and more shops offer email receipts or just not to have one at all, the need for receipt printers will hopefully be a thing of the past soon.

You will also find ethernet based RS232. The idea here is space saving on the I/o rather than speed. Traditional RS232 ports are just too chunky for slimmer computing.

I replaced my serial barcde readers wih ones that just plug into the keyboard port, with an adapter that you then plug the kb into. The scanner just converts to keystrokes and the whole business is, for my usage, transparent. This is for data entry into a database application, though, where kb entry is expected.

As for no receipt printers .... <shudder>.

Personally, I'm NOT giving most shops my email address, but for proof of purchase reasons, I sure want a receipt. Np printer? Fine, hand-write one.

Yep, dinosaur here. Payment by phone? Hell can freeze over first. Cash is king for most things, for me, unless I want a credit card transaction for consumer protection.

[Saracen999]

I still deal with them for receipt printers, less & less for barcode scanners & customer displays. Main reason being they just work, no rebooting for drivers or USB issues of printers not being detected, they simply talk directly to the port rather than layers of API.
In certain environments it will not be replaced.
Slowly USB improves for receipt printing but it's far from perfect. However, as more and more shops offer email receipts or just not to have one at all, the need for receipt printers will hopefully be a thing of the past soon.

You will also find ethernet based RS232. The idea here is space saving on the I/o rather than speed. Traditional RS232 ports are just too chunky for slimmer computing.

I replaced my serial barcde readers wih ones that just plug into the keyboard port, with an adapter that you then plug the kb into. The scanner just converts to keystrokes and the whole business is, for my usage, transparent. This is for data entry into a database application, though, where kb entry is expected.

As for no receipt printers .... <shudder>.

Personally, I'm NOT giving most shops my email address, but for proof of purchase reasons, I sure want a receipt. Np printer? Fine, hand-write one.

Yep, dinosaur here. In a few years, there may be a model of me in the Natural History museum, Dinosaur exhibit, labelled 21st Century Dinosaur. Payment by phone? Hell can freeze over first. Cash is king for most things, for me, unless I want a credit card transaction for consumer protection.

[DanceswithUnix]

Main reason being they just work,

lol, not really my memory of them tbh. As a programmer I used to have to support serial ports, and sometimes under DOS where I had to hit the metal directly writing "terminate stay resident" interrupt handlers. So they just worked, because I had sweated so damned long over them and provided clear cabling instructions

Then along came Windows XP. I remember staring in disbelief when debugging a serial problem: I could see bytes on an RS232 line monitor plugged between the PC and target going into the PC, and I could see Windows reporting those bytes coming in and XP every now and then actually flipped two of the bytes around in its drivers, with nothing I could do about it. That was a big nudge for me to adopt Linux at the time!

Like Saracen I used to have a bag of 25 and 9 pin male and female shells around, along with one of those LED breakout boxes that allowed you to see that both ends were trying to drive the same transmit direction or one side wasn't getting the CTS signal it needed etc and try out different connections on a little patch panel. I really don't miss that

In the mid 90's I worked at a company called Specialix that made serial port boards for PCs, including ones that could be expanded from 8 to I think 128 ports (I worked on the up to 32 port SI board). Even back then you would occasionally see someone just stop at their desk, mutter "who on earth still buys this stuff?" and then shake their head and carry on as it paid the mortgage

I actually wrote a serial port once in software using the timer circuits to generate output waveforms and time incoming edges on a microcontroller. Managed to get that sucker to do 19K2 full duplex on an 8MHz microcontroller where it had to take an interrupt on each edge generated or measured, so I'm still quite proud of that.

[DanceswithUnix]

it's a board header not on rear panel: https://www.asus.com/motherboards-co...wifi/techspec/

Yep, it is just a motherboard header. Though pretty sure I have one of the cables to plug into it in the garage. I might even have a choice of 9 and 25 pin if I've been my usual cable hoarding self, but pretty sure I have a 9 pin "just in case".

[Saracen999]

... I really don't miss that

...

Amen to that.

[DanceswithUnix]

I see that motherboard is out of stock now, the 7900 CPU has dropped £20, and the ram is now dispatched but hasn't arrived yet. So if I had waited for the RAM to actually be in stock, I would be looking for a different motherboard.

Still a bit of a game this PC parts buying malarky isn't it.

[[GSV]Trig]

Oh absoluetly, by the time you've narrowed down the list of parts you want, they're out of stock, its a pita..

[raygdunn]

I was surprised to find my new ASUS motherboard has PS2 sockets. All USB these days, I thought.

I have been debating updating our aged Freesat tuner, which needs an RS232 connection for the data! (I suspect it is locked in to an old satellite list.)

[MrJim]

I use a ps/2 trackball, & the lack of motherboards supported the 'legacy' socket is becoming a bit of a problem. The irony is that the types of motherboards that do still support the ps/2 socket are either the really cheap ones, or the ones heavily focused on overclocking (where the socket is actually still needed occasionally), and which are really expensive.