[ale] [Slightly OT] Prolific

[mike at trausch.us]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone here actually seen a WORKING chip from 
Prolific?

I'm finding myself wondering how the hell they're still in business. 
Every USB cable I have purchased that has a PL* chip in it simply 
doesn't work.  Doesn't matter if we're talking about serial or parallel 
interfaces, they just never ever work.

And of course, you can never tell what chipset is in the stupid things 
until you've bought them and hooked them up and then you have that 
"D'oh!" moment.

Seems that Fry's only carries such cables, so I guess I won't be buying 
from there anymore.  Linux kernel devs strongly suggest avoiding them.

The problem this time?  It will receive data from a modem, but not 
transmit to the modem.  So I can see:

RING

RING

But if I try to send "ATA" nothing happens, no echo, no going off-hook, 
no screeching, no nothing.

Wonderful, yes?

SO anyway, just curious: has anyone heard of a chip from this 
manufacturer actually performing as intended, or do they just hate me?

	--- Mike

-- 
A man who reasons deliberately, manages it better after studying Logic
than he could before, if he is sincere about it and has common sense.
                                    --- Carveth Read, “Logic”