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Author Topic: Should I keep XP around? Harold Hallikainen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 906 From: Denver, CO, USA Registered: Aug 2009 posted 07-14-2014 08:42 PM                        Yes, RS232 on the JSD-80 is a pain! The micro only has one uart, and it's used to drive an RS485 bus on the backplane. The rs232 is driven with an off chip uart with an sli interface. It only has a 4 byte fifo, so a lot of handshaking is required to not miss stuff. Harold  |  IP: Logged Justin Hamaker Film God Posts: 2253 From: Lakeport, CA USA Registered: Jan 2004 posted 07-14-2014 09:15 PM                        I just had to replace a hard drive on an Dell computer which came with XP. The installation went without much trouble and I was able to install Windows updates through the end of life. This particular computer doesn't quite have the minimum specs for Windows 7, but still works just fine for it's intended purpose - as a secondary office computer. As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason to dump a working XP machine until it stops working or is no longer meeting your needs. And if you are just going to get rid of it to upgrade, I'm sure your local school would be able to find a needy student who would be perfectly happy with the machine.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 07-14-2014 09:36 PM                     Hey, the communication on the ECI-60 has raised my blood pressure too!  |  IP: Logged Harold Hallikainen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 906 From: Denver, CO, USA Registered: Aug 2009 posted 07-14-2014 10:34 PM                        Though I did the firmware for the ECI, I manage to hand off support on that to Rick E. So, I haven't looked at it in a while. I know the early ones had the Xport for Ethernet, which was a real pain. I don't remember too much about the RS232 other than it has a checksum mode that the GUI uses. If you then disconnect and use the RS232 for automation, you have to disable the checksum (typically by power cycling) unless you want to compute the checksum on all your commands (and I don't!). Rick does a great job supporting the ECI. I stick with the JSD-100, JSD-60, CM-8E, DAX-16, closed captioning, and LSS-100 since I can remember how they work. Harold  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 07-14-2014 10:47 PM                        quote: Justin Hamaker As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason to dump a working XP machine until it stops working or is no longer meeting your needs. The only exception to that I'd make is if the machine is used for a mission-critical application that requires it to be connected to the Internet. In that situation, the security vulnerability of having a net-connected XP computer would worry me. I'm rehabilitating an early '00s vintage XP machine for use purely to control our d-cinema projector and as an insurance option to command an AP20 as a "get out of trouble" if the touchscreen should fail during a show (or if it's needed for a show before it can be fixed). So all it needs to do is run a terminal program and NEC Digital Cinema Communicator. With some more memory it would meet the requirements for 7 easily, but I can't see any point in spending the time or money to put 7 on it. It won't be connected to the Internet (the booth in question has a hub to which the projector, the DSS200 server, the AP20, a CP650 and this computer are connected, but which is not connected to the outside world at all), and so with the settings locked down (i.e. a non-administrator account will be used for everyday operations), there's no way any malware can get in, and with XP it'll do everything I need it to quite happily.  |  IP: Logged

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