Interesting comments... I have never had any problems with any USB device over the years. I might add that I have only used two devices with my ham radio gear and they are both microHam products which Joe knows all about. Other USB devices I have used have always been designed for the various computer devices or interfaces I have dealt with so maybe they do not count in this discussion.
But, I think the comment below, if I understand the point being made, is that a problem with USB is in emulating a serial port on a computer or a serial device. I agree with that, I think that the day that USB stops trying to emulate some old technology we would all be better off. I am not against RS-232 or serial interfaces but I am ready to do something different. I think that USB opens up a lot of new ways that rig control and interfacing can be implemented that might make software applications more powerful and easier to implement. For example, most, if not all of the rig interfaces are command based in that you send the device a command and sometimes this returns data and other times it just returns an acknowledgment. But, there are much nicer interfaces that can be implemented too. For example, the memory mapped approach might have a lot of advantages. This follows from the way that computer devices would interface to the various bus structures by using hardware mapped memory addresses. That is, writing to a memory location and by that setting a bit in some word was equivalent to sending a command to some I/O device. Or, reading a memory location was the same as reading a hardware register physically part of some device control unit. The LINUX operating system took the old Unix /dev/kmem type device access for reading and writing memory and extended it to full process control using the mapped proc memory space. Rather then using USB to emulate a serial command infrastructure, what about using USB to interface to a memory based infrastructure. Sure it would be more sophisticated on the ham radio rig side of things but it certainly can be done. phil, K7PEH On Nov 22, 2009, at 12:40 PM, Julian, G4ILO wrote: > > > > Joe Subich, W4TV-4 wrote: >> >> >>> USB is good technology and it only needs a few little >>> improvements in future revisions to specifications. >> >> With its plug and play features, USB is very handy for consumer >> toys and games but it is severely lacking in many other ways. >> >> > > Joe is absolutely right here. A serial port is a hardware device with well > documented properties and its own dedicated interrupt that could get the > operating system's attention the instant it needed it. The problem is that > USB provides an imperfect emulation of a serial port that does not work with > all software. > > With most of the uses USB is put to the device is designed to work with USB > right from the start so the driver writers don't have to try to emulate a > dedicated piece of hardware. That makes it easier to ensure that things > always work as expected. Even so it was not all that long ago when many USB > devices did not work with certain USB chipsets. VIA chipsets were notorious > for problems. > > ----- > Julian, G4ILO. K2 #392 K3 #222. > * G4ILO's Shack - http://www.g4ilo.com > * KComm - http://www.g4ilo.com/kcomm.html > * KTune - http://www.g4ilo.com/ktune.html > > -- > View this message in context: > http://n2.nabble.com/KUSB-Adapter-Alternative-tp4046719p4047665.html > Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
