KUSB Adapter Alternative

Hi Everybody;
 As the KUSB discussion thread continues on, I'd like to suggest an
alternative.
All motherboards, except 40 year old ones, sport a PCIE port or two. There
exists a whole
bunch of converter cards that ride the PCIe bus and convert to serial ports,
parallel ports, printer ports
and most any other data transfer protocol.
 A good example of this can be found at Tigerdirect.com. A PCIe bus to
printer port with two com ports adapter
card for $39.95. What a deal! And never a USB problem again!
73's Bob, K7HBG
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[Phil Hystad]

"...never a USB problem again!"

Actually, I don't think there are USB problems.  USB is a very good standard that supports a large variety of devices and configurations.  The specification allows for simple point-to-point interface as well as hub/hosting, device sharing, and a number of other useful things.

However, there is a problem in how interfaces to a computer have evolved and the problem seems to always be associated with dealing with old antiquated technology while being faced with new standards and new capability.  For example, when PCs were first introduced, the parallel port seemed to be the ubiquitous interface medium.  If you have some custom device that needed to talk to the computer, the parallel port was the way to go since it was incredibly simple -- merely asserting voltages on different lines for the most part.

Next, the serial port became popular because the UART technology started becoming a commodity and available to a lot of different hardware vendors.

But, the parallel port held on long after the serial port showed superior (in many ways) connectivity.  There was a time not long ago when there was a parallel and serial port discussions not unlike this KUSB discussion.

In my opinion, since the serial port became so popular that it stayed around much longer then it should have.  Computer vendors would have probably done justice to this movement by removing support of the serial port much earlier then now is happening.  I see it as a good thing that now a serial port is often only offered as an option on some computers and not available at all on others.

USB is good technology and it only needs a few little improvements in future revisions to specifications.  And, if vendors always support backward compatibility on USB then we are in fat-city.

OK, off my soap box.
phil, K7PEH


On Nov 22, 2009, at 7:28 AM, k7hbg @dslextreme.com wrote:

> Hi Everybody;
> As the KUSB discussion thread continues on, I'd like to suggest an
> alternative.
> All motherboards, except 40 year old ones, sport a PCIE port or two. There
> exists a whole
> bunch of converter cards that ride the PCIe bus and convert to serial ports,
> parallel ports, printer ports
> and most any other data transfer protocol.
> A good example of this can be found at Tigerdirect.com. A PCIe bus to
> printer port with two com ports adapter
> card for $39.95. What a deal! And never a USB problem again!
> 73's Bob, K7HBG
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

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[Joe Subich, W4TV-4]

> USB is good technology and it only needs a few little
> improvements in future revisions to specifications.  And, if
> vendors always support backward compatibility on USB then we
> are in fat-city.

USB is another example of technology ignoring marginal applications.

1) There is, to my knowledge, no currently available USB chipset
   that supports standard data rates below 300 bps (thus no baudot).

2) USB chipsets and the USB bus itself operate at much higher clock
   and data rates than the UART/serial ports they replace with
   results in a much larger problem with radiated RFI.

3) Typical USB cables are much more "cheaply made" than a quality
   RS-232 cable and are more prone to failure.  The failure often
   appears as an open shield with greatly increased noise.  

4) USB port "power management" is often unreliable, particularly
   if the USB device is used with a DLL driver instead of an
   "USB Converter" driver.  This results in the spontaneous,
   random "loss" of connectivity.
 
5) all devices connected to a single USB "root hub" operate in
   a polled, time shared basis.  The time slotting makes accurate
   real time events (e.g., bit flipped CW) even more difficult.

With its plug and play features, USB is very handy for consumer
toys and games but it is severely lacking in many other ways.

73,

   ... Joe, W4TV
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Phil Hystad
> Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 11:54 AM
> To: Elecraft
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] KUSB Adapter Alternative
>
>
> "...never a USB problem again!"
>
> Actually, I don't think there are USB problems.  USB is a
> very good standard that supports a large variety of devices
> and configurations.  The specification allows for simple
> point-to-point interface as well as hub/hosting, device
> sharing, and a number of other useful things.
>
> However, there is a problem in how interfaces to a computer
> have evolved and the problem seems to always be associated
> with dealing with old antiquated technology while being faced
> with new standards and new capability.  For example, when PCs
> were first introduced, the parallel port seemed to be the
> ubiquitous interface medium.  If you have some custom device
> that needed to talk to the computer, the parallel port was
> the way to go since it was incredibly simple -- merely
> asserting voltages on different lines for the most part.
>
> Next, the serial port became popular because the UART
> technology started becoming a commodity and available to a
> lot of different hardware vendors.
>
> But, the parallel port held on long after the serial port
> showed superior (in many ways) connectivity.  There was a
> time not long ago when there was a parallel and serial port
> discussions not unlike this KUSB discussion.
>
> In my opinion, since the serial port became so popular that
> it stayed around much longer then it should have.  Computer
> vendors would have probably done justice to this movement by
> removing support of the serial port much earlier then now is
> happening.  I see it as a good thing that now a serial port
> is often only offered as an option on some computers and not
> available at all on others.
>
> USB is good technology and it only needs a few little
> improvements in future revisions to specifications.  And, if
> vendors always support backward compatibility on USB then we
> are in fat-city.
>
> OK, off my soap box.
> phil, K7PEH
>
>
> On Nov 22, 2009, at 7:28 AM, k7hbg @dslextreme.com wrote:
>
> > Hi Everybody;
> > As the KUSB discussion thread continues on, I'd like to suggest an
> > alternative. All motherboards, except 40 year old ones,
> sport a PCIE
> > port or two. There exists a whole
> > bunch of converter cards that ride the PCIe bus and convert
> to serial ports,
> > parallel ports, printer ports
> > and most any other data transfer protocol.
> > A good example of this can be found at Tigerdirect.com. A
> PCIe bus to
> > printer port with two com ports adapter
> > card for $39.95. What a deal! And never a USB problem again!
> > 73's Bob, K7HBG
> > ______________________________________________________________
> > Elecraft mailing list
> > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> > Post: mailto:[hidden email]
> >
> > 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:[hidden email]
>
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> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

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[Matt Zilmer]

I've been experimenting with a serial server that resides on the LAN
here:
http://www.serialgear.com/Ethernet-Serial-Servers-NETCOM-411.html.
It's a 4-port and can handle any baud rate needed.

I've had no problems with the server, but it's not as fast as the KUSB
even with the cascaded hubs here.  A full (all boxes checked) upload
takes about 20% more time on the serial server over the KUSB's load
time.

There is also the ES1A from B&B Electronics.   This single port
Ethernet to serial adapter is very slow on program loads, but works
fine for other tasks (HRD, Digipan, WSJT, etc).

Note: Using shielded Ethernet CAT6 cabling here.  Recommended around
the K3 sensitive ears.

2nd Note:  If you poke a hole in the blocked incoming ports on your
router and alias the hole to the LAN IP address associated with the
K3's port, you can operate the K3 remotely.  More audio equipment and
finagling is required, and I haven't tackled this yet - but I've
talked to a few guys that have and they love it.

73,
matt W6NIA
K3 #24

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[Julian, G4ILO]

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.

[Phil Hystad]

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.
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[Julian, G4ILO]

Phil Hystad wrote

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.  

...

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.

Yes, you understand correctly, Phil, and you make valid points. I understand the argument of those who suggested that if the K3 was made with a USB interface this would eliminate these problems. But perhaps they are only concerned with using their K3 with a Windows PC now, which of course is the only viewpoint many computer users have.

I also stand by the point I made earlier, that if the K3 had a USB interface, Elecraft would have to develop drivers for each of the major operating systems, or else decide to support only Windows as Icom has done. Your long term use of the radio would then depend on the continued availability of drivers for new versions of operating systems in the future, not to mention the continued availability of USB ports.

USB is here today but it could be gone tomorrow. It's here because it meets a need, but there is no guarantee that it will not have been replaced by something faster and completely different in ten years time. It exists to meet the need of consumer computer peripherals manufacturers, who see their product life cycles in terms of just a few years. They benefit from such built-in obsolescence, but many people I know are unhappy about throwing away working equipment because it is not supported by their new computer, and that's when it's a $100 printer not a $3500 radio.

I know people who still use radios that are 30 years old or more, and I think most K3s would have a similar life. So regardless of the superior technical interface methods that would be possible if Elecraft had chosen a USB interface I think they made the right decision by sticking with RS232. Because although serial ports may have gone from personal computers they are NOT obsolete and are still widely used in industry, and are more likely still to be used for the life of the K3 than USB ports will be.

Rather than suggesting, as one person did, that people should dump their old PCs and buy a cheap netbook with USB capability one might humbly suggest that people should forget about using laptops for their shack computer and buy a cheap desktop with PCI slots capable of installing a real RS232 port in it for reliable radio control. The K3 is not a cheap consumer computer peripheral so why should we expect to plug it in and use it like one?

[Eric Swartz - WA6HHQ]

Let's wind this thread down today. We've passed the max post qty
threshold ;-)

73,Eric   WA6HHQ
Elecraft List Moderator

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