Building a new system: two questions

I'm going to build a new system in a couple of months. I do this about
every three years, so I'm very comfortable with the basic process, but
not very familiar with current options and products.

I'm partial toward Tyan boards. I've had three good experiences in a
row with them, and never a bad experience, which is more than I can
say for a couple of their well thought-of competitors. If all else is
equal, I'd like to get another Tyan board, probably a Trinity.

Looking at ads, though, I see that almost nobody is selling Tyan
boards any more. This makes me worry about the company's viability. If
nobody is selling their products, are they likely to stay in business
over the life of my next computer? Alternatively, if they're doing
great in other areas but nobody is selling their workstation
mainboards, are they likely to continue making that type of product,
and giving it reasonable support?

I also have a concern about serial ports. I need to continue using at
least one serial device, but I see that requiring an on-board serial
port will greatly restrict my options. I know that USB-to-serial
converters are available, but how well do they work? Speed is not
important; just compatibility and reliability.

My mail address is jsachs177 at earthlink dot net.

On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 14:15:44 GMT, Jonathan Sachs
<nobody.TakeThisOut@nospam.accepted> wrote:

[snip]

 >I also have a concern about serial ports. I need to continue using at
 >least one serial device, but I see that requiring an on-board serial
 >port will greatly restrict my options. I know that USB-to-serial
 >converters are available, but how well do they work? Speed is not
 >important; just compatibility and reliability.

I got some of these USB-serial adapters recently for our new notebooks
that lack serial ports. These notebooks are used for programming
Siemens PLC's using a serial-MPI adapter.

Notebook > USB-serial > serial-MPI > PLC

Previously we used Siemens' notebook's that have an onboard
proprietary MPI interface. Using the adapters saved us thousands of $.

Anyway, these controllers are quite picky on what systems they want to
connect with, and I had no problems whatsoever. Incidentally,
USB-serial adapters are selling for ridiculous prices at the local
notebook shops, but I found some really cheap ones at a PDA shop that
sells them as "Palm III USB adapters".<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->