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Old November 30th 17, 04:42 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default Dell computer with no input

Mark Lloyd wrote:


My newest desktop computer has no floppy connector, but it does have
RS232 (serial) and parallel port connectors on the motherboard.


And you realize when they do that, that it's all an
affectation.

The chip that does all the low speed I/O is called the "SuperI/O".
It has serial, parallel, floppy interface, IRDA, PS/2 and so on.

Intel proclaimed "we will do away with that thing". But Intel
isn't the whole story in life. And motherboard makers still
include it, or the various variants of it. It's 128 pins,
and a rectangular chip, if fully fleshed out.

In some cases, the motherboard maker wanted it for the
hardware monitor, which can be read out in Speedfan. But
without too much trouble, they can also leave headers on
the motherboard for the other interfaces.

I didn't think I had RS232 on the new machine, but one day
I was idly looking at USB headers, and spotted a header in
one corner of the board (2x5) with a different "missing pin
pattern". And that turned out to be an RS232 port. Which
I tested, made up an adapter cable, and it all worked.

SuperI/O chips (ones with PS/2 interfaces for that PS/2
connector) plus PCI bridge chips (so you can have a PCI
slot for that old sound card), are still features on
retail motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS and so on.

There are just two classes of customers. One set of customers
absolutely hates legacy interfaces, and they won't buy a
legacy motherboard with the interfaces on it. All they
want is PCI Express and USB3. The other set of customers
are quite comfortable having legacy interfaces, just so
they can continue to use junk from their junk room :-)

Paul
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