John, I think that is a very small fee per device or may be per some sort of assignment ID codes to be kept unique.
Primarily the USB standards cater to the mass production market. Most of the options for a design expect thousands of units to be produced in a production run. The USB interface is a nasty little complicated thing and requires a large investment in study time to get familar with it. Also, there's no telling for just how long a time it will remain valid. It is a product of the modern PC age. The serial interface is slow and cumbersome and lacks many standards which tend to constrain things rather than help sometimes. It predates personal computers and to some extent, predates computers, going back to the days of the teletype. While not offering high speed and not being suitable for transferring large amounts of information quickly, it can be superior to the USB in some ways - specifically - wired interfaces for distances longer than 10 or 20 feet. For some 'secondary' hardware standards like RS485 instead of RS232, it can provide interfaces in excess of 1000 feet. Although USB style to RS232 interface devices may eventually become specialty products not found at the local computer store due to a lack of need from most users, they should remain around as specialty items. If RS232 is suitable for the job, then it might even be a safer bet than USB to use for a product that should be expected to be around for a decade or more rather than the typical life expectancy of 10 weeks for the usual computer junk. Most of my USB/serial ports were from the office supply place and labeled as USB interfaces for PDAs. I'm sure there are better suited ones for RF environments and probably cheaper ones too. But as long as USB survives, they should provide me with the ability to connect to real devices I need, such as radios, telescopes, TNCs, and gizmos that I can build and program PCs to operate without having to read several hundred pages of barf just to do something simple - like a dual azimuth antenna rotator controller. Such a homebrew project is impractical with USB, if not virtually impossible, with most options having development kits that would cost more than buying a commerical rotator in the first place. As for USB, it's the best thing that's happened to RS232 serial ports since willard gates succeeded in getting the native ones banned because now there's no seriously low limit as to how many you can stick on your PC and they are the size of a pigtail cable with a long connector housing on the end. What's more, they are finally well supported as serial port devices by the OS. best regards, Charles wb5izd Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2007 13:23:26 -0400 From: John Huggins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] USB Support - K3, K2? To: Richard Kent <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed I am not sure, but can point to one example that does include a USB "chip" in its design that takes care of the conversion from USB to serial. It is the WinKeyUSB interface from K1EL. It is quite possible the purchase of the chip might pay such fees indirectly. If it does the fees must be low as the cost of the kit is under $50. Richard Kent wrote: >I thought I heard or read that including an USB controller into a piece of >equipment requires one to pay a licensing fee to the organization that >maintains the USB definition. If this is true that could be why many devices >do not include USB compatibility. The cost may be too much for the number of >devices to be sold. Anyone know for sure?? > >Rick Kent WD8AJG > _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
