Review on 💻 StarTech.com Low Profile PCIe RS232 Serial Card with UART 16550 - 2 Port Native PCI Express Serial Card - PEX2S553LP by Carl Estell

For most people, RS-232 communications have been marginalized with the normalization of internal modems and PS/2 mice. Many of the other edge cases were solved with USB, but a few odd anomalies remained (and remain to this day). A significant number of point-of-sale devices, network devices with a serial control port, legacy UPSs, and almost all IoT boards still use serial communication. My use case is IoT, so how did the StarTech.com Native RS232 Native RS232 PCI Express 2-Port Low Profile Serial Card with 16550 UART appear to me? Some people will be happy about the inclusion of the 16550 UART in this product. This was BIG BUSINESS in the days when modem data rates were over 9600 baud. The limitations of the hardware interrupt model and the lack of a true data buffer in the 8250 UART dictated the move to the 16550 UART. However, there are other ICs today that are functionally equivalent (or better) so this is no longer a selling point. My problem with cheap RS-232 USB ports is that (in my experience) most of them emulate a COM port, but in case of a configuration change (among other changes) they don't reserve the same port number. This can be a problem if your software accesses devices by COM port number. Second, some USB solutions always put the port number in the 8-32 range, which can be a problem if your software only supports 2 or 4 ports. This solution has three main advantages: 1. Hard ports (no USB dongles): If you have a POS setup, this should not be disregarded as cables can be connected to the port and can easily support the weight.2. permanently configured COM port numbers: ideal for fixed installations3. Better Non-Windows 10 Compatibility: For people with alternative operating systems, I've had no problems using this with older and alternative operating systems.