davyd: obsolete ports (not all tawny improves with age)

Davyd (

davyd) wrote,
@ 2008-03-29 11:52:00

obsolete ports (not all tawny improves with age)

There was an article on C-NET (as linked by Slashdot) on the top 10 obsolete ports which was very disappointing to read. I feel that the author just didn't try. Either that, or he/she is 16 years old.

To make up for this, I started compiling a list of ports that you really don't see any more, that really are obsolete:

Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) - used to be on every Apple Macintosh, the cables are useful for hooking up S-Video
BeBox GeekPort - the hobbyist's computer integration interface, I wish this one had taken off
Localtalk - Apple networking
AUI - supplanted because no one uses MAUs anymore (also Apple's AAUI)
10Base2 - my first home network was 10Base2, with coax running down the halls, debugging was done with a multimeter and paperclip
Game Port - these were awesome, because they had two analogue inputs and were straightforward to acquire from in BASIC, I still have a DA-15 MIDI breakout somewhere
13W3 - video connector, used to be seen on a lot of swanky graphics workstations, e.g. from SGI and Sun
EGA - the graphics adapter (CGA and others of that ilk too)
MMJ - used for DEC serial, I have vague recollections of a DECstation with MMJ keyboard and mouse connectors too
Enhanced Small Disk Interface (ESDI) - an improvement on ST-506, separating control electronics from the platters is a manly way to design hardware

The author also included the ISA and AGP buses, but I feel that some real classics were missed out here too:

S-100 Bus - "zenith of the microcomputer world"
MCA - have a lot of cards using this lying around for some reason, ironic since I've never owned an MCA-based computer
NuBus - I had a NuBus ethernet card in a Mac once
VESA Local Bus - lots of motherboards had a VLB slot but did anyone ever own a VLB card?

Can you think of more obsolete ports? Comments welcome.

(Post a new comment)

theducks
2008-03-29 03:22 am UTC (link)

- Apple Monitor port (DB-15)
- Apple Serial (Din 8 RS-422)
- AT Keyboard
- BNC for composite video

Honourable mentions of pre-obituary:
- PS2 - some motherboards now only come with the keyboard one
- DB-9 Serial - from two added ports + another 2 onboard headers in most 2001 motherboards, now some don't have any
- FDD connector - newer Intel chipsets don't support floppy drives anymore
- IDE - new motherboards only have one port, and I think that'll be gone in another 2 years

Edited at 2008-03-29 03:23 am UTC

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	davyd 2008-03-29 03:30 am UTC (link)
	The Apple monitor port was a DA-15 wasn't it? (compared to VGA which is a DE15) Apple serial is also a good inclusion. I thought about adding this, but thought that Apple had been slammed enough in one post. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

	Zanchey [typekey.com] 2008-03-29 03:32 am UTC (link)
	A lack of serial ports on laptops is really hurting us at work - we have a lot of data collection gear which only comes with serial interfaces, and USB-Serial or PCMCIA-Serial seems to cause all sorts of problems (dunno why). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

	Great Post! (Anonymous) 2008-03-29 03:31 am UTC (link)
	CNet UK did a really crappy job. Great list! (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: Great Post! davyd 2008-03-29 03:41 am UTC (link)
	Thanks! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	syncretin 2008-03-29 03:41 am UTC (link)
	I definitely had something VLB. EIDE controller? Why I had an EIDE controller card I'm not sure. I think it was on my 486DX100, which was my first real computer. It might have been a video card, I suppose. That seems more likely. I wonder what happened to that machine... (Reply to this)(Thread)

	theducks 2008-03-29 03:46 am UTC (link)
	Back in the good ole days where your HDD was MFM or RLL, and your EIDE interface was on your /soundcard/ for your multimedia CD drive. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)(Expand)

	davyd 2008-03-29 03:46 am UTC (link)
	I think that VLB EIDE controllers did exist. VLB added high-speed DMA, which would give DMA access to a HDD. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	vlb cards (Anonymous) 2008-03-29 01:00 pm UTC (link)
	I had a 486 DX2 66 with VLB cards. One was a multi I/O card with FDD, IDE, Serial, Parallel etc. The other was a 2Mb VGA card. That was in the days before basic I/O was fully built into the motherboard. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	SBus (Anonymous) 2008-03-29 08:48 am UTC (link)
	Older sun hardware had sbus. Nice at the time, but way obsolete now. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	Re: SBus davyd 2008-03-29 03:50 pm UTC (link)
	I'd totally forgotten about Sbus. The UCC still has a stack of sbus kit lying around. Awesome! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	davyd 2008-03-29 04:19 pm UTC (link)
	I've never been on the cutting edge of graphics adapters. Spent a sizeable portion of my life with an S3 Virge and thinking it was pretty awesome. I've heard the Olivetti was special, I've never seen one though. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	hub_ 2008-03-29 05:06 pm UTC (link)
	Actually I just wish I could find a SCART-equipped TV here in north-America (Reply to this)(Parent)

	hub_ 2008-03-29 01:48 pm UTC (link)
	I don't see any mentions of the GeoPort. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeoPort (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

	OpenLDI (Anonymous) 2008-03-29 02:45 pm UTC (link)
	OpenLDI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLDI) is a display connector used almost exclusively by the late, great Silicon Graphics 1600SW. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

	Definitely VLB hadess.net 2008-03-29 03:22 pm UTC (link)
	My 486 SX 25 (and my dad's earlier 386s) all had VLB for video. Faster than ISA, and frigging huge cards. (Reply to this)

	loic 2008-03-29 03:58 pm UTC (link)
	Even AGP is dead now. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

	MMJ (Anonymous) 2008-03-29 04:10 pm UTC (link)
	As an OpenVMS administrator (those exist? yes) I still have a ton of MMJ equipment. Not that I use it all, but I still have some in operation. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

	Agree (Anonymous) 2008-03-29 05:53 pm UTC (link)
	I am forced to agree with the CNET's article. The ports listed ARE obsolete. The fact that they did not list really out-of-the-use ancient ports is quite irrelevant hair splitting. Nowadays we have 99+% of all external devices USB, DVI/HDMI. The HDDs for are either fiber or SATA(2). For audio we have our toslink (coaxial and optical), or often USB (headsets etc). (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

	who could forget http://mysterion.org/~danw/blog/ 2008-03-29 06:29 pm UTC (link)
	the Atari/Commodore DE-9 joystick/paddle/light pen port (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

	wdomburg 2008-03-30 03:53 am UTC (link)
	Oh, just thought of another good one - IEEE-488 (aka HP-IB, GPIB). Originally designed for test equipment, also used in the HP 3000 line, HP 9000 line. Variant with a different connector used by Commodore in the Vic 20, 64 and 128. (Reply to this)(Thread)(Expand)

	leahcim 2008-03-30 04:01 pm UTC (link)
	I'm sure there was plenty of VLB video hardware around in the mid-to-late 486 era. I recall the ET4000 being a particularly kick-ass card at the time... (Reply to this)

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