It’s nice that it is easy for PCs interact with outside world again.
Back in the DOS days, it was easy to connect stuff to computer. Both serial and parallel ports were easy to use, and timings were stable and predictable - DOS was generally staying out of your way unless you accessed filesystem.
Then there was a long period of time after Windows and USB appeared when the interactions become hard. The USB ports were complex, and even if you did get USB-serial adapter (surprising number of people didn’t know about them!) they were slow and jittery due to multitasking.
And now we have all sorts of easy to use embedded boards - from Arduinos which would be computer-controlled over serial port, to Expressif products which give full wifi capability for inly a few dollars. And they come with tons of tutorials, easy to set up IDEa, and powerful libraries.
Back in the DOS days, it was easy to connect stuff to computer. Both serial and parallel ports were easy to use, and timings were stable and predictable - DOS was generally staying out of your way unless you accessed filesystem.
Then there was a long period of time after Windows and USB appeared when the interactions become hard. The USB ports were complex, and even if you did get USB-serial adapter (surprising number of people didn’t know about them!) they were slow and jittery due to multitasking.
And now we have all sorts of easy to use embedded boards - from Arduinos which would be computer-controlled over serial port, to Expressif products which give full wifi capability for inly a few dollars. And they come with tons of tutorials, easy to set up IDEa, and powerful libraries.