Onboard serial ports

[Jason White]

John G. Heim <jheim at math.wisc.edu> wrote:
> Right but if you  buy your own motherboard, then you have to put it
> together yourself. A lot of people aren't up to that.  And if you
> buy a machine or even have one built for you in a shop, their mobos
> might not have an exposed serial port or even the header block. The
> shop is probably buying the cheapest mobos they can and they might
> not have a serial port header block.

There are online suppliers (at least around here) that let you select all of
the components from a huge catalogue and who will then assemble the machine
for you and ship it out by courier.

My current machine, though, is an HP workstation, an ex-demonstration machine
that I bought from a distributor at a large discount.

A serial port is standard even with the latest models.