clickit

I intend to buy a used laptop shortly. The devices I will attach are currently using parallel port and USB on my desktop.
I don't know what was on a mid to hi end laptop 2 years or so ago in the way of ports. Would someone comment on that please?
Is the PCMCIA still being used to attach different devices?
Are there more than one type of USB port and if so which has the best support for now and into the immediate future?
What was the speed of a mid range laptop 2 years ago?
Will I need a serial port to use my 56KB modem?
Thanks this will help some towards selecting from what is available.

Rubberman

1. Try to buy a recent model (2 years old or less)
2. If you need a parallel port, try to find a laptop with one, otherwise you can get a USB -> parallel port adapter, though you might have some problems with Linux support (I have no experience with this directly).
3. You should get a system with at least 1GB of RAM.
4. Get a dual-core CPU if you can. Speed should be at least 2GHz.
5. Most laptops still have a PCMCIA port, but a lot of new small "netbooks" and laptops don't.
6. Any USB port on systems built over the past few years are USB 2 (480mbps) instead of the older USB 1.1 (11mbps) that you'd find before. You will DEFINITELY want a USB 2.0 or later type.

__________________
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real time.

gnuuser

I currently use a 6 year old dell latitude d800 2 gig ram 1.8 ghz cpu and it runs most versions of linux
its currently running gnome version of pclinux os and it runs quite good.been using linux for 5 years now after (25 years of micro crap)

Rubberman

The D600 I gave to my grandson is about that old - about the same RAM and CPU that yours has, except it won't run 64bit software. It runs Ubuntu just fine, and I used to run Linspire/Freespire on it for awhile, also without problems.

__________________
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real time.