tmp26

The Dell one is nice. Are you sure the X1 comes with linux though? It looks like the only choices are W7 & W8

The problem is not "few options", the problem is "few GOOD options".

With Apple laptops, there is limited choice sure, but the choices are all pretty darn good. With Linux preinstalled laptops, they are entirely uninspiring computers.

This might have just been rumor, but I've heard tell of devices with fake CE stickers.

Supposedly select parts are coming back, as big companies lose faith. (But not all of it will come back)

Price competition is great! The shady thing about the imitations is trying to insert themselves into someone else's supply & support chain, IMO.

Which is probably tied to the reason they didn't implement the ACM spec- from my limited hobbyist view, FTDI is the dominant player, so of course they would chose to mimic the non-standard ft232 instead of some underdog ACM player.

Oh, and as for costs, you're totally right that spinning a chip costs way more than a driver. But:

- A theme as I learn about fly-by-night companies is they piggyback on other operations. As the article observes, this knockoff required only 1 mask layer, because the rest is probably a standard microcontroller.

- Marketing & marketshare are probably the real reason, not getting out of writing drivers. Again, FTDI seems to be the entrenched player.

Honestly? I rotate accounts on most major sites periodically. It is a tinfoil-hat foible, a way to distance myself from the exceedingly dumb things I have almost certainly said in years past.

Unfortunately for me, I chose today to rotate.

I don't work for FTDI; I'm not even British. But I did build that Adafruit altoid tin MP3 player eight years ago, which used a FT232.

Why am I wasting my time on this argument? I don't really know, aside from I hate the "internet dogpile" effect.

My credibility as a greenbean is nil of course, but oh well.

Edit: obviously folks do not believe me. Serves me right for trying to answer. jessaustin, I hope you at least feel like you got your answer. I get the feeling it doesn't actually matter what I say or even who I really work for- I'm branded.

According to the thread the VID is RO?

Most HN'ers seem to agree it is OK for FTDI to prevent their own drivers from working with the fakes, right? The fact that there are no OTHER drivers that are compatible (no matter what the pid is) with the fakes isn't their problem, is it?

I don't think so. There was at least one guy in the thread who reprogrammed the PID back, and the chip worked with the old FTDI drivers again, which means the USB interface was working just fine (or else how could he access it to change it back).

Right, I forgot, anyone who isn't part of the lynch mob is a shill.

I rarely eat breakfast in the first place, sadly.

"bricking" doesn't seem to be the right word. FTDI is making it so that the counterfeit chips don't work with any FTDI drivers, old or new. (Per the thread, all that happens is the PID is changed to a PID that no FTDI driver will recognize)

What is the HN crowd's preferred way of dealing with that kind of parasite?