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[Segin]

Alexandre Souza wrote:
>>Printers are a case in point too - a parallel port does that job just
> 
> fine,
> 
>>yet it's hard to find a machine that doesn't have more complicated USB
>>interfaces on it, and a printer's now expected to use that.
> 
> 
>     The problem is the legacy - in order of building smaller PCs, people
> should get rid of the (big and clunky) parallel port. Imagine a pc where
> everything - printer, keyboard, mouse, pen-drive - is USB. You'll have to
> have a power supply, a video and a USB connector, all peripherals can be
> connected thru USB, and many of them (as a keyboard - dunno why it doesn't
> happens today) becoming a USB hub.

Some first-generation iMac keyboards (the ones that had their own cord 
builtin, more specifically than the ones that needed an extra cord) dis 
this exact thing. I remember setting up some iMacs at school one day, 
and remember having to plugin a USB floppy drive into the USB port 1 of 
the keyboard, and the mouse in USB port 2 (some didn't have a floppy 
drive cause the keyboard was the ones that needed a extra USB cable for 
the keyboard itself, consuming a USB port just to function).

Why? They were using the second USB port on the system for either a 
printer or other USB device, for example, this touchpad that was bigger 
than the computer+keyboard+mouse (a good 30 inches, in fact). A few had 
USB ethernet dongles to replace the fried onboard ethernet (it's a 
public school, any mention of a "surge protector" or any other device it 
would be logical to use gets KIGO'd. Eh, I guess that's what our tax 
dollars are going for -- and horrible cafeteria food.)

-- 
The real problem with C++ for kernel modules is: the language just sucks.
	-- Linus Torvalds