Doesn't the sound card require a driver? At what point is that loaded? The serial port is probably not essential for any purpose other than boot time access, so for other peripherals a USB or pcmcia to serial adaptor is sufficient. --le ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Whapples" <mikster4@xxxxxxx> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2006 5:57 PM Subject: Re: laptops with serial ports What is the reason for serial port? If it is to be able to install linux with speakup, then would it be possible to choose something with a suitable sound card and use software speech in something like GRML. I think people were saying in discussions about GRML that it is possible to install debian from that, and it should most certainly be possible to install gentoo with that (as I think all the install stuff is in the stage file that you decompress to the hard disk and and the speech is provided by the linux CD). As I remember last year when my old HP laptop got stolen, it was very hard to find a replacement with a serial port (although I did find one at Dell, the inspiron 510m (I think no longer in production)). Sorry I can't help too much with that part, all the ones I can find seem out of your price limit (evesham computers have one with a serial port, but approx 1200 www.evesham.com). May be one of these companies that can build laptops to order could do something, but I think they will be too expensive if you need to stick to that limit. If you want the serial port for other things, then is there other solutions with various adaptors from other ports suitable? From Michael Whapples ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Snow" <alex_snow@xxxxxxx> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 7:29 PM Subject: ot: laptops with serial ports > Hi All, > > Looking at retiring my old Latitude cpt in favor of something a bit > faster. What current laptops do people here have experience with? My > main requirement is something with a serial port, and I'd like to find > something under $1,000. Any input would be apreciated. > > -- > MSDOS didn't get as bad as it is overnight -- it took over ten years > of careful development. > -- dmeggins at aix1.uottawa.ca > > > _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup at braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
