WEBVTT

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We're all used to USB as a super versatile connector

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we can use to connect most things, but did you know it only started gaining popularity

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in the late 1990s? How the heck did we hook up anything before that?

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Tape and string? Turns out the answer's no.

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Printers used these big, chunky parallel ports.

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Monitors used the D sub VGA port

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while the PS2 connector was common for keyboards and mice.

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But if you needed to hook up some other type of gadget, there was a good chance you were using this guy.

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Simply called a serial port. Don't worry, he's harmless.

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And yes, the S in USB also stands for serial,

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but when we say serial port in computer land,

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we're typically talking about the old school nine pin connector that people also called a COM port

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or an RS232 port.

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It had little screws that threaded into the PC itself

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to hold it in place, as well as to prevent the connector from bending too much,

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especially since it had a bunch of pins sticking out.

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But old serial ports weren't just different from USB and how they looked.

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They were a lot slower.

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Some devices could only transfer data at 75 bits per second

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while faster devices could get up to around 115 kilobits

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per second. For reference, the average home internet speed in the US today is over 400 times faster.

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They didn't even have TikTok back then. But the slow speeds didn't always matter very much

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when you consider what serial ports were typically used for. They were very popular for connecting

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early dial-up modems back in the day, if your PC didn't have one built in, that is,

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which could only hit groovy speeds of 56 kilobits per second.

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You also found them on old school personal assistants like the Palm Pilot as a way to sync data

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between the device and a PC, as well as on uninterruptible power supplies,

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as the serial port provided a data connection so you could keep tabs on the battery charge level.

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There was even early smart home equipment that used a serial port to communicate with a base station

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that could then send signals to smart plugs to turn lights on and off.

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Serial ports also had uses beyond home PCs.

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They've actually been around since the 1960s, and back then they were used for teletypes,

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which were popular for long distance communication before all the cool kids and Corpo fat cats

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started using fax machines to send each other important memos and hot recipes.

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Even though serial ports are very slow, it just didn't matter much back when screens

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could only display a few lines of text at a time. And while teletypes are obviously obsolete now,

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serial ports are actually still around. Even though you won't find a serial port on a modern PC,

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they still have an appeal because, well, they just work.

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Attached devices usually don't need complicated and sometimes temperamental drivers to function,

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which is important for certain kinds of work equipment. Cash registers, medical devices,

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and industrial machinery still are commonly equipped with serial ports because they're so reliable,

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and they look cool. It's like 80s punk. And when you think about it,

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the slow speeds really don't matter that much. Sending a product ID scanned in from a barcode,

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a record of how much money a stick of gum cost, the temperature of a critical piece of equipment,

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or even the sound of someone's voice over a satellite phone,

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just doesn't use very much data. So even though the serial port is a dinosaur

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by modern standards, the reliability it offers still makes it an attractive choice.

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And we'd be remiss if we didn't also mention cost.

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Not only are serial ports cheap to implement, but if you have millions of dollars

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of older equipment using them, you wouldn't want to replace it until you absolutely had to.

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And I think most businesses would rather spend that money on something like employee beanbag chairs.

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I miss them. Thanks for sitting on your beanbag

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in whatever form it takes and watching this whole video.

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Hey, like it if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it. Check out our other videos

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