kls@ditka.Chicago.COM (Karl Swartz) (04/05/91)
> The PC532 breaches normal convention, it should have been configured DCE ! ... > - PC532 Serial Ports ... have a DTE configuration, just like a PC-AT, > but unlike normal multiple serial port host computers. > - You can't just connect the ribbon to a terminal ... abnormally for > connecting a computer to a terminal, you need to add a crossover > cable (= `null modem'). Normal conventions? DTE means data terminal equipment, a consumer or producer of data, while DCE means data communications equipment, some piece of equipment that merely communicates data between DTEs. The PC532 is clearly the former. Ok, arguing about RS232 definitions is often silly as everybody seems to have their own way of interpreting it (does anybody think it isn't an absolutely miserably designed standard?) so perhaps a glance at what the big guys say is "normal convention" for a "multiple serial port host computer." Sun says DTE. IBM says DTE on mainframes as well as on PCs, and I think the RS/6000 family. DEC wires VAXes as DTE, though with the stupid MMJ jack there's hardly enough to tell, and PDP-11s were wired that way too. Seems to me the "normal convention" is DTE, just like the PC532. I'd have been a bit surprised if the PC532 was wired otherwise. -- Karl Swartz |INet kls@ditka.chicago.com 1-408/223-1308 |UUCP {uunet,decwrl}!daver!ditka!kls |Snail 1738 Deer Creek Ct., San Jose CA 95148 "It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw." (Calvin)