USB chargers, anyone ?

My father-in-law was a professional key-man who worked for the UK FO many years ago, and I remember him telling me that the first squeeze key that he put together in some god-forsaken outpost, was made from two thin table knives, taped together at the handles and jammed in a vise, with alligator clips for the connections ... ! :-)

Arfa

That sounds obvious, reliable and easy to fix.

Imagine how many GB of shitty code would be used to do the same thing today, at greater cost and lower reliability.

Ditto for Windows. Let's not turn this into Windows bashing.

Just to make it clear... You can plug any USB device into any port at any time, and the correct driver will be found and loaded. If you plug it into a port where it has previously been installed, the driver might be found a bit faster.

Furthermore, USB can handle up to 256 devices.

I can only defend USB "negatively" -- I've never had problems with it.

I've used it since win 98SE came out, and the only problems I've had were erratic ports on a failing motherboard. The board failed a few days later, with the low ESR caps split open.

Or they just don't tell you what's happening. Two ports is easy. When they work OK. When Apple screws up, it really screws up. I know people who spend hours on the phone to Apple for problems. I'll fix any of their PC or Cisco problems, but I won't touch Apple. I've repaired computer hardware at the component level, from the Motorola 'Exorcisor'

6800 days. I troubleshot MC68340 embedded controller boards at the factory, and my first IBM XT was built from boards all repaired on my bench. I even converted that motherboard from the 256 KB version to the 640 KB version.

There is a program they will display all the USB devices a PC has used, along with other information. I can't think of the name right now, and it's not on this hard drive. It's my backup system that I use to program ICs

So, you're clueless, stupid & bitter. Got it. All the computer is doing is telling you that the device wasn't used on that port before. Try swapping an external RS-232 modem & RS-232 mouse on an old PC and you'll be doing all of the work yourself rather than just see a popup.

It's called Device Manager. All you need to do is select View --> Show hidden devices, and expand the USB section.

This listing isn't available until you set a system variable. I forget what it is.

you don't know what you're talking about is the problem here.

take for example an epson 1680 scanner, or tons of other devices.

moving it will require a reinstallation of the driver, and you can't just point windows at the location of the drivers, which are already there. Printers are notorious for this bullshit too.

Back to the scanner- if you use with with the SCSI interface and change IDs it doesn't require a reinstall.

something with USB and how things use it is completely retarded.

RS-232 never claimed to be smart, easy or anything.

USB does, which is a big lie.

No wonder you're farbissen.

I've never seen this with USB. USB is keyed to the device's description -- not to a specific port.

I'm talking about a stand alone program that gives detailed information that isn't available from Device Manager. I just found it online:

Save it, then unzip it. Click on USBDeview.exe to run it.

wrong.

the port a device is on is somehow a big deal. Why? I can't explain why people do stupid things, but they do.

Intelligent technical people developed stuff like ethernet, where you can move everything around and it works.

dumbasses made USB, where that's not the case, and you end up with stuff like CDs with WARNINGS IN CAPS!!! DANGER INSTALL DRIVERS BEFORE PLUGGING IN DEVICE.

I've never seen that warning on a parallel port, serial port, starlan adapter port, arcnet adapter port, tokenring port, FDDI port, ethernet port, SCSI port, Fibre Channel port, or anything, ever period.

USB = total shit.

Then buy any SCSI card & any SCSI scanner. The expensive cables, the teminator and have fun. Of course, there are lots of incompatable SCSI intefaces, and hardware. Try plugging a modern SCSI drive into an original SCSI card. Have you ever seen a SCSI cable catch on fire? I have, when the conductor for power to the terminator left a empty, burnt piece of plastic in the middle of a 50 conductor ribbon cable when the internal active teminator failed with a dead short petween that pin and the grounds. Let's see you do that with a current controlled USB port.

it's smart enough to piss you off.

It sounds like he brings it on himself for buying Epson. They can screw up anything. Like the original magic Jack. It reinstalled itself every time the computer booted. Several minutes, with it's bootloader covering the center of the screen, and in your way. That wasn't a problem with USB, but the implementation.

If I plug my iRiver H120 into any USB port on any computer, it's supposed to recognize that the device is a hard drive, and install the appropriate generic driver to communicate with it.

If the device isn't "generic", the system will look through its "records" for the correct driver. If it finds it, fine. If not, it prompts me for the appropriate driver.

I assume what Michael says about Epson screwing everything up is true. I've never installed an Epson product.

On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:41:12 +0100, "Arfa Daily" put finger to keyboard and composed:

Isn't that kind of technology subject to the Official Secrets Act? :-)

- Franc Zabkar

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Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:22:59 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader put finger to keyboard and composed:

What I don't understand is why we need a 480Kbps interface to connect a keyboard or even a mouse. My maximum data transfer rate, as a two-finger typist, is only about 2 bytes per second, error correction notwithstanding.

- Franc Zabkar

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Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:34:33 +0100, "Arfa Daily" put finger to keyboard and composed:

I'll let you know in a couple of months. I just took delivery of one (I ordered it two weeks ago).

- Franc Zabkar

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Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

I assume you're joking.

The U in USB stands for Universal. It's intended to connect almost any kind of device.

On Sat, 15 Sep 2012 05:34:54 -0700, "William Sommerwerck" put finger to keyboard and composed:

I'm serious. I find it extremely annoying when I encounter an application that won't run because it can't handle a USB keyboard or a USB mouse. IMO there was nothing wrong with the PS/2 or AT keyboards or mice, or serial mice for that matter (I'm still using a serial optical Mouse Systems mouse), so I see no reason to introduce an additional complication. USB is fine for high speed (or "full" speed) peripherals, but I'm not going to waste a port on a keyboard.

- Franc Zabkar

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Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.