Keith Barrett writes: > I am needing to replace my old debian box which has sadly died (r.i.p) > So, I have been looking for a motherboard with a serial port. This > is not proving to be easy at the moment. > > I have been offered a plug-in serial card but I am doubtful about this. > > Anyone know whether this is likely to work with speakup and a serial synth? > > Not got in to specific cards as yet because if it is going to be > problematic, not worth looking in that direction. > > Also, if anyone has found a source of motherboards with serial > ports, would like to know. > > Many Thanks > > Keith Barrett > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup at braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup Keith: Avoid the plugin cards and avoid the USB to serial converters. Instead, look for a mobo with a serial header, recognizing that the specs may refer to it as a com port header. You can buy the ribbon cable and backplane mounting bracket for a few bucks from a supply store. The reason for going this way is that the header is going to give you a serial port at the address and IRQ you want, e.g.: /dev/ttyS0, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x03f8, IRQ: 4 The plugin and USB devices will give you something that looks and feels like the DB9 serial port you know and love, but that acts very differently internally, and therefore not interfacing with Speakup in the kernel. So, while serial ports have disappeared from our backplanes, all is not lost. In my recent search for Intel LGA 1155 mobos, I was pleased to see lots had "com port headers." PS: I'm still working on getting mine up and running, but I may actually be in the position of needing a new Litetalk (or Tripletalk). Janina -- Janina Sajka, Phone: +1.443.300.2200 sip:janina at asterisk.rednote.net Email: janina at rednote.net The Linux Foundation Chair, Open Accessibility: http://a11y.org The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Chair, Protocols & Formats http://www.w3.org/wai/pf Indie UI http://www.w3.org/WAI/IndieUI/
