I guess around 1995 then? Whenever they switched to DB25 to DE9 for serial.
> probably some silly historical reason
original rs232 spec had a lot more signals and capabilities that very few consumer products implemented. So you were expected to have the full connector, even if the lines weren't hooked up.
>I guess around 1995 then? Whenever they switched to DB25 to DE9 for serial.
There was a transition during the 90s where the DB25s were phased out and replaced with DE9s. Computers became more commonplace and popular, and they also became smaller, so the bulky 25-pin port fell out of favor.
Hardware flow control was retained with DE-9. The lines that were dropped included an entire secondary communications channel and timing signals, the sorts of features that I doubt saw much use in personal computers in the 1980's (when it was mostly used for things like modems and printers) and would see even less use today (when it seems to be mostly used for diagnostics ports).
> probably some silly historical reason
original rs232 spec had a lot more signals and capabilities that very few consumer products implemented. So you were expected to have the full connector, even if the lines weren't hooked up.