On Tuesday, July 1, 2014 1:04:26 AM UTC-4, George Cornelius wrote:
m II wrote:

On 14-06-30 09:33 AM, dave wrote:



Thanks. Some cutting and pasting into the Terminal beats paying for

software. And the programs usually work better; if you do have a problem

there are free answers everywhere. Nobody cares if you are a drooler

from the Great Lakes. Mint 16 Mate` here.



I was worried the USB to Serial converter cable might have issues, but

it was recognized immediately. So, it looks like the total demise of the

9 pin D connector has been delayed for a while.



Those 25 pin D serial cables were a source of mystery to me. 25 wires

for a SERIAL connection?



You can account for a great many of them by the phone company

(remember, at one time only _they_ could attach equipment like

modems to their lines) trying to imagine all the different sorts

of signals that might be needed between data terminal equipment

(DTE - like a terminal or a computer) and data communications

equipment (DCE). Synchronous modems needed clock signals,

sometimes going both ways, truly relied on RTS/CTS, and sometimes

provided secondary, low speed channels for such things as

supervisory control; and you could tie in automatic calling

units - ACU's - that could be sent digits as four-bit codes

in order to make outgoing calls. In those days the communications

equipment could be very expensive, especially with the extra

features, so they wanted a standard that would support the

customers paying the really big bucks for the Cadillac

configurations.



The connectors were pretty stupid too. "Let's make them like boat

anchors" said the misanthropic tech..."it will keep them swearing and

tangled for decades!"



I believe the worst sin in the design of the the serial

interface - the RS232 standard, for short - was making it

asymmetric. Using a symmetric standard that did not differentiate

between who's what on either end, and had for every control

or data signal going one way an equivalent going the other

way, with perhaps special connectors that automatically created

a crossover when installed (stepped connector, male at one extreme,

female at the other?), would have made things so much simpler

down the road. How many pins are used is a minor thing - just

drop down to a reduced size connector, like we do with the DB9,

for simpler configurations - but asymmetry caused, and still

causes, innumerable problems.



The same guy got a job later, making sure that only ONE end of USB

cables were standardized. He also developed all the gizmos that require

three batteries. I can only charge two at a time.



Murphy's ******* son Phucupius.



mike
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: And Murphy's son's wunderkind-offspring (called Springinbed) created ISDN ... and there was an even a bigger mess lying ahead.