Well I knew i shouldn't have started this, but, I wasn't trying to get too technical or prove what I know vs. someone else, etc.....one of the reasons I left this forum for a few years is that many don't seem to want to help but live to correct. I will forgive you since I have kept track of the forum and there are a handful of posters that help out many, many people and seem to have the right ideas and intentions and YOU are definitely one of them. But, please don't be so quick to "correct" when you are not technically "correct" either.
Yes, RS232 is indeed a control protocol developed and specified by the EIA back in the early 60s. It is officially supported on dfferent connections as my post indicated including the original DB25, DB9 and RJ45, although to support it on both DB9 and RJ45 the specs had to be modified to allow for the fact that neither has enough conductors to carry all of the "official" signals. Thus RS232c, EIA561, etc. I could be wrong, but I have never seen an EIA spec for using it on a stereo minijack. Go back and read the EIA's specs if you want to get technical since RS232 DOES specifiy an approved connection.
Is serial a connection? Not always as you chose to "correct" me. The English lanquage and our society allow plenty of leeway with our wording and I am as guilty as the next person in exercising my right to! Sometimes the word "serial" is liberally used to describe a connection type (and I accept and use it this way), but it is also used to describe a protocol (and a breakfast food for that matter...just trying to keep this from becomming a pissing battle over symantics).
The term serial actually describes the way the data is sent, one following the other like lemmings as opposed to parallel which has multiple bits of data arriving on separate signal paths at the same time. There are MANY serial protocols of which RS232 is the most popular, but we also have RS422, RS485, USB, IEE1394 (firewire), ATA, etc. Thus it DOES technically describe a connection, but NOT a connector.
Re-read my post and you will see that I know USB is NOT RS232. You apparently seem to think I think it is by your "corrections".
I too am certified on AMX and am working on Crestron. I would love to see TCP/IP become the standard and it will for AMX, Crestron, Control4, Lutron, etc. but probably NOT for device configuration and updates (unfortunately) which is why many manufacturers have added the serial ports in the first place...control was a secondary thought. Look at projectors and surround processors. They were among the first peripherials to have serial connections. Originally those were only for factory use for firmware updates, then they allowed field updates, THEN they allowed control.
Products that I carry that currently use USB? Meridian G Series, ReQuest, most brands of PCs on most operating systems can be controlled via their USB port (unfortunately the TCP/IP is used mainly for data transfer and not control), MP3 players (again mainly for data and updates, but some are working on control), Panasonic's new multicell phone systems and many "black boxes" that we use for various applications.
Products that I have had discussions with in adding USB? Lutron, AMX (sort of already has with their PC control), Crestron, Lexicon, Integra, Kaleidescape. Many of these have TCP/IP or older, legacy serial ports (DB25 or DB9) and are simply looking to be more up-to-date and/or flexible.
Lastly, yes I feel that TCP/IP is our future in control too, however, there are many more devices that have and will continue to have "serial" interfaces and NOT TCP/IP. Maybe that will change with IPv6 adding more avaialble addresses. Until then, there are many "black boxes" that convert TCP/IP to serial (all of them) that are stop gaps for now. Some even include their own web servers and email clients making the possibilities endless.
I typed this rather quickly and tried to keep it in layman terms, but, I am sure that there are some technical errors in this post too so fire away if you feel that you need to. Not really the true point of forums but it is what many seem to live for.
