Well I spent the weekend shopping for a new PC/notebook that had XP installed (but I suppose could be upgraded to Vista if/when I get that desperate). I was looking for something current hardware-wise, at least something circa 2006/2007. Not bleeding edge. From what I could tell, ALL of the big-box stores in the USA have removed ALL of the XP computers. They gave me some line about having to return them in 30 days from Jan 30 to get credit. I'm sure Microsoft had a role in that through the manufacturers or distributors.

Fortunatley for me there are still a few specialty PC shops that handle PC's with XP, Vista, Linux or whatever. I guess a lot of IT departments are forbidding the use of Vista on corporate LANs until they get more experience. The independent shop I visited ( http://www.notebookshop.com ) was PACKED with folks looking to buy the latest and greatest PC pre-Vista.

Interestingly too, you CAN still buy a notebook with a true DB9 serial port and I even saw one with a PS/2 port, though that one was at least a year old. Some notebooks have docking stations that expose DB9s, DB25s (LPT), PS2, etc. These ones are true ports. Then there are others that have USB docking stations that do the same, but "virtual" over USB. I'm not sure how well the latter work, but at $99, it might be worth a try.

So the moral of the story is that you can still get an XP equip-ed machine (or just buy a boxed XP if you are rich), but you probably can't get one at a big-box retail store (CompUSA, Best Buy, etc).