Talk:Virtual serial port

Is this a standardized protocol, or is this a windows-specific facility? -- Karada 11:47, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Added link to GPL Null-modem emulator project (http://sourceforge.net/projects/com0com) as a free software alternative -- 195.224.154.168 09:15, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe VMWare supports a type of "virtual serial port", allowing things like minicom on the host to connect to the serial port of the guest. The software's hidden away on their site somewhere. -- jhf

Merge
This article should be merged into COM port redirector, and COM port redirector moved to Virtual serial port, as the latter is a much more generic, platform neutral name. I'm adding the merge tags now.

I have also moved this comment from elsewhere in the talk page, as it gives reasons both for and against the merge. This was written before the merge suggestion was made, however, and wasn't written by the author as an argument about merging:


 * Mainstream technical perspectives, representative technology, and the major hardware/software manufacturers of related products have been omitted from this page. "Virtual serial port" is a technical term for one aspect of the broader technology of COM port redirectors and tty port redirectors. The content mainly consists of product marketing information from the web sites of Eltima and FabulaTech, two small companies among many offering products that include virtual serial ports. "Virtual serial port" also happens to be an Eltima product name and a domain name owned by Eltima.  (MMK 13:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC))

I dislike the name COM port redirector as a generic term for this subject, unless some references can be cited that this is a de facto generic name. I also can't find any explanation of how a "virtual serial port" differs from a "COM port redirector" other than as a supposed subclass of the latter. Any merge should involve fixing both issues. -- jhf 06:53, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Comment by the above-cited author
The argument for merging content and the question of surviving article title for the COM port redirector and Virtual serial port articles needs to be considered with terminology and market realities in mind.

Regarding which term for the technology is more useful to Wiki users: "COM port redirector" is by far the predominant term in the current market, having been used for nearly 20 years by nearly all vendors of such software and many thousands of IT professionals up to present day. This remains true notwithstanding the recent marketing push by a few new entrants to promote the use of the term "virtual serial port" while they use it in product names and web site URLs. Outside the community of IT people who use this technology, the term "COM port redirector" might seem less generic, but it is in fact the term still used by all major suppliers, including server hardware manufacturers. Though it is Windows-centric, "COM port redirector" is often used as an acceptable simplification in connection with Linux/UNIX platforms, which, for technical reasons comprise a small fraction of the use of the technology. For references, search "redirector" on web sites for the established hw/sw vendors such as Digi, Lantronix, Tactical Software.

Regarding useful content to be recovered from the Virtual serial port article: One may find there is little left after removing commercial marketing material, consolidating repetitive content, reducing the space dedicated to fringe applications and putting what's left through a basic technical sanity check.

My suggestion for moving forward is to improve the COM port redirector article within Wiki rules, keep it relevant to the market, avoid the marketing spam, drop all commercial web site links for that matter, and make the article's title and content useful to people who build real applications with the technology.

-- User:MMK 16:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)