Reply With Quotea modern board with a parallel port. a cpu that is supposed to be low power consumption that still has a fan. no dvi, hdmi, or display port. nice that it doesnt have the huge atx power connector.
matt
Phoronix Member
Archaic?
Wow, this board is such a blast from the past! LPT, COM and VGA on the back panel...two PS/2 ports, only 4 USB and a Floppy interface (plus the included cable)! I really wonder who all that is geared for? I mean, sure, robotics development can use LPT or COM ports, but there are a dozen USB adapters for that purpose already; otherwise, it's like the designer just got back from 1999 :-)
Phoronix Member
a modern board with a parallel port. a cpu that is supposed to be low power consumption that still has a fan. no dvi, hdmi, or display port. nice that it doesnt have the huge atx power connector.
matt
Moderator
In industrial applications those ports are still very commonly used (and still use old software that require real uarts where emulation is flakey at best). Also those ports are useful as dedicated appliances where serial is still used (such as on many FTA satellite boxes).Originally Posted by mgc8
Phoronix Member
Yes, I know, that's why I made the oblique reference to robotics research; there are probably lots of people storing control programs and moving around financial data on floppies as well (can't believe how much those are still used in some fields!). I think this board is definitely not made with consumers in mind -- for a "nettop" or "htpc" appliance there are far better (and sometimes cheaper) alternatives.
It is funny nevertheless to look upon a board with so many legacy features (I think the only thing missing was the IDE port), I for one haven't seen LPT for some years now, and was expecting an ISA slot to jump on me from around the corner :-P
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