Why does the Amiga One have legacy ports?

[mikeymike]

Seriously? Its an all new platform which will only run old programs under emulation, why does one need those things like PS/2 and serial and parallel ports? Apple doesn't have them for 5 years.

They're part of the standard ATX spec.  As cases aren't being supplied as part of the AmigaOne by default, then users and resellers have to make do with currently available hardware.  You could design a custom header board to fit into an ATX case so that the motherboard headers match the holes in the case, but that's an extra, totally unnecessary expense.

Also, AFAIK no proper USB printers have yet been designed, the only ones I've heard of are "software" printers, like "software" modems.

USB is an evolving standard still, and IIRC not 100% backwards compatible.

[mikeymike]

usb is slow and eats cpu

My friends say this too, but on USB 1.1 machines I've tested this on recently, I have seen no discernable CPU overhead (watching CPU monitoring utilities as well as various types of system call).  One of the machines was a K6-2 350, and generally was low spec, including a crap graphics card, still no discernable CPU usage when using a USB mouse.

In short, "I'm not convinced you're right about that"

USB 1.1 is "only" 11Mbit/sec.  That should suffice for printer, mouse and keyboard though.   A scanner would get impeded though.

USB IMO does get horredously misused, like for example ADSL over USB is such a stupid idea, when a network card is far more suited to the task, and much cheaper.  The only reason why USB was chosen is so that ISP engineers don't have to open machines for ADSL installation.  Oh, the hardship of installing a network card.

[mikeymike]

Does Amiga One mobo come with all the I/O ports needed for a graphics and animation system?

I don't know... what are all the I/O ports needed for a graphics and animation system?

Note that the A1 SE/XE don't have integrated graphics.

and are there any drawbacks to cordless keyboards or mice ...ie: loss of speed

Security is one problem.  The transmissions can be picked up by even monitoring devices outside the house the cordless keyb/mice are in.  Another is weight of the mouse, and another, I would expect, is that the devices' responsiveness wears down as the battery wears down.  And what about when the battery starts getting old?  We're not talking about the technology of battery you'd find in a mobile phone.

why would anyone want to use USB ports anyway ...?

I used to be anti-USB.  Now I'm only anti- stupid uses of USB, such as ADSL over USB.

ill the Amiga One mobo had a fast scsi port and can you get a mobo with a scsi HD?

No and no.  A SCSI PCI card is necessary.

[mikeymike]

@ platon42

Is it possible that the USB printers I've encountered (3 IIRC) *are* software printers, and the ones you've encountered aren't?

@ whabang

My topcom works like a charm... (of course, it lacks driver support...)

That doesn't prove it's not the spawn of Satan though.  :-)

@ ritty

no idea.  :-)