lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (05/08/86)
A primary issue in any application involving flow control is that so much hardware was not designed with true flow control in mind. Even the serial line multiplexors that can be coerced into not sending output when some line is held high (e.g. RI), generally do not have a reasonable way to provide good flow control in the input direction. For any flow-controlled applications more complex than handling a printer, input flow control is extremely important (and can be complicated to do properly, as well). This is especially true with many Unix systems, which often exhibit poor input response on serial lines at even moderate input speeds. --Lauren--