Dear Friend and Subscriber,
Diehard readers will remember the infamous "Goodbye RS-232" letter I wrote way back on April 23 of 2003.
I've never had so many passionate responses. Took me dang near a week to reply to them all.
It all started when EE Product News editor Joe Desposito wrote a column predicting the demise of RS-232.
It's not hard to see where Joe was coming from. At the time, Ethernet was finally being adopted by the industrial world and USB was (finally) starting to work. Still, I didn't believe him.
But even I had a few brain cells that were nagging at me - wondering if Joe just might be right. Maybe my own passion for Chevrolet, apple pie and 9600 N81 were clouding my judgment. And as the world's largest supplier of serial converters, the idea of the world leaving RS-232 in the dust was a bit unsettling.
So I held my breath.
During those long, oxygen deprived years B&B Electronics grew, shipping more serial converters each and every year, developing even more great converter products (more on that in a minute).
Even so, Joe's prognostication never stopped nagging at me.
Just last week I got a report from a new market study. And you know what they said? 232 chip sales keep growing. 485 chip sales are growing even faster. In fact according to the guys that study this stuff, the 232 and 485 chip market is s'posed to grow a combined 20+% by 2010.
I'm happy to say that the engineers here at B&B Electronics are doing our part to make those numbers come true by developing even more unique 232 and 485 converter products.
After all, when you're out in the field and your Thingamajig and your Doodad aren't communicating, you need a product that does more than just work. You need it to have the right connectors, the right power inputs, detailed documentation and expert technical support. All of us have had jobs where we spent more time wrestling with hand-built cabling than we did on the rest of the project. At B&B Electronics we know that when we get you and up running it means you could be home in time to see little Jimmy's Little League game.
That's why we've got so many converters for you to choose from. Your brand new B&B Electronics catalog is in the mail to you as you read this, and it's got no less than 50 different serial converters in it. And those are just the ones we advertise.
Now as much as I know that you want to count all those converters yourself (pages 36 to 46 if you'd like to read along), I want to point out just a couple of can't-miss items.
He-man serial converters
These babies are triple-isolated, surge-protected, hazardous-environment rated, wide temp, Modbus compatible with primo pluggable terminals, huge input range power supplies and as always, have the best darned support you'll ever find.
He-man 232 to 485 converter 485DRCi
He-man 232 and 485 isolated repeaters 232OPDRi and 485OPDRi
He-man 232/485 to Fiber Optic converter FOSTCDRi
Slightly-less manly converters
No reason to be ashamed of using these units. We've re-designed one of our most popular in-line 232 to 422/485 isolated converters. We made it 2 times smaller, upgraded the terminal blocks and made it easier to set up and install than ever. Don't worry, tech support won't as much as snicker if you ask about one of these little numbers and they don't come in pink.
http://www.bb-elec.com/product_family.asp?FamilyId=352
Tonight I'll sleep a little better, more confident than ever that RS-232 and RS-485 are here to stay.
Happy Connections,
Mike Fahrion
support@bb-elec.com
(800) 346 - 3119
P.S. Check your mailbox right now for your brand new B&B Electronics catalog. There's 128 pages of unique products, at least one of which is likely to save your bacon on your very next job. Devious coworker already snatched your catalog? We'll send you another if you promise to take good care of it.
http://www.bb-elec.com/catalog_request.asp
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