Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Mon, 2007-01-15 at 21:42 +0000, Ian bell wrote:
Me too. I do a lot of microcontroller development and most of the tools use the serial port for device programmimg - I currently use a USB/serial adaptor on my laptop.
Those things drive me mad. They never seem completely reliable and I know my Picstart programmer simply refused to work on one last time I tried it.
I guess I have been lucky. I bought a cheap one from ebuyer and it has worked flawlessly.
Also when I am out in the field and need to attach quickly to a managed switch/cisco/dying Alpha box or whatever usually I find that the converter has escaped from my kit bag.
Ah, the joys of the field ;-) I strongly suspect there are special corollaries to Murphy's Law that apply specifically to the field - like the one tool you REALLY need won't be in your toolbox.
Usually it elopes with the near impossible to find in an emergency Cisco console lead, but just recently it seems to have had a fling with my Alpha era storage controller console lead (nasty RJ45 end with offset latch and almost totally impossible to find)
The other thing I find puzzling in this increasingly PC world is that we are still allowed to refer to male and female connectors - hoe sexist is that?
Ian