Not fair. Very few laptops have serial port (I came up with GPD Micro PC) and maybe zero have modem, but some laptops have VGA port. Manufacturers know that VGA is still used but serial/modem aren't.

These days I suspect that something like a toughbook might be the only option for those sort of ports - although that GPD Micro PC does look quite fun.

Even 10-15 years ago, proper serial ports were becoming extremely rare, but there are times when you need a proper one.

Around that time we resorted to pc card/express card serial ports for occasions when USB to serial isn't good enough, although they were relatively expensive (3-4 times more than a USB serial dongle).

(The use case in that scenario was field engineers connecting to a very wide variety of odd equipment, like fire alarm panels and door entry systems, that sort of thing - USB dongles were massively inconsistent and unreliable - different dongles would be compatible/incompatible with different kit, was a right mess).

Obviously, these days, express card slots are also quite rare.

(The alternative is hauling out my old IBM T22, which I think maybe came with Win98... mostly still works apart from the battery).

Serial is less useful as you need a serial cable, so if you're going to carry a serial cable you might as well have one with USB on the end.

If you're going into an RJ45 serial connection (like I am at the moment), then an ideal laptop would have multiple RJ45s which could be used as either 10G or serial with a standard cat5 cable (not a specially wired one).

Maybe good news: GPD Micro PC seems to have ITE IT8987E for serial port rather than USB-Serial chip. https://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/hothot/1166289.ht...

> but some laptops have VGA port

Do any (non-specialist) laptops still have VGA ports? I had a quick look on the Dell site and couldn't find any.

In Japanese market, some latest models support VGA but mostly by domestic brand. Some models are made by Clevo or whatever, so possibly also available on other markets. Here's a list: https://kakaku.com/pc/note-pc/itemlist.aspx?pdf_Spec047=1

Those are seems to available on other markets. https://www.asus.com/Laptops/For-Work/ExpertBook/ExpertBook-... https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/pc/noteboo...

I too also throw away perfectly good gear because of a decision apple made!

Stupid analogy - HDMI, RJ45, and USBA provide the same experience as using usb-c equivalents.

I use a USB-Serial cable about once a week. I use an ethernet cable dozens of times a day.

Framework means in theory I could have a laptop (Well in theory) with say 4 ethernet / serial ports (switchable) and SDI, and that's far more useful to me than USB-C.

Exactly! And many people still need to use floppy disks and parallel ports.

That could be covered by something like this concept:

The Admin Book A4

[1] https://habr.com/en/post/437912/

:-)