[onerng talk] Putting Inf Noise on Tindie in non-competitive way?

[Paul Campbell]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2014 13:21:45 Bill Cox wrote:
> That is part of the idea behind using the FT240X.  There are both
> commercial and open-source drivers for it.  In Windows, it is recognised
> and the USB driver is auto-installed.  It creates a virtual COM port that
> is simple to deal with.

(Bill: this not a rant intended to be at you in particular, more a general one 
at this issue that came up in the past couple of weeks)

I would really encourage designers to avoid the FTDI serial chips at the 
moment - largely because of the whole issue of counterfeit devices and FTDI's 
recent complete over reaction to the problem

If you're just making a few devices by hand as you are it's not a big issue, 
but if you're planning on anything more you run the risk of accidentally 
having a contract manufacturing house stuffing some clones in there and then 
having FTDI's new windows driver bricking your (customer's) device - it's a no 
win situation for the designer, and for the end customers, the people stuck in 
the middle in this fight

FTDI are cutting their own throats here by alienating the people (you and I) 
who might choose to use their chips, we don't dare until they change their 
position

FTDI serial chips are really common, largely because they had the first working 
USB serial solution - but they did it by creating their own USB protocols 
rather than using a standard - it means they need their own drivers to speak 
this protocol - and they've claimed a high premium price (which is why they've 
been targeted by Chinese clones), I've never used them because they were so 
expensive (it's cheaper to drop a small atmel part in place and use an open 
source stack) 

	Paul