[ale] A little gripe

[Ben Coleman]

On Thu, 19 Apr 2001 16:34:19 -0400, J.D. Forinash wrote:

>But serial, that's another story. For one, you can't just go buy a 
>serial cable. There's 25 pin and 9 pin and RJ45 and male and female.
>
>And then electrically they're different. One end's DTE and one end's DCE.
>
>And then add in the fact that there doesn't seem to be a standard that any 
>two companies use to put serial on RJ45. 
>
>And then add in the fact that most serial hardware doesn't care about half
>the signals.
>
>So even those of us who know what we're doing but just don't do it often
>enough get annoyed.

And then there's the issue of 7E1(or 7O1) vs 8N1, not to mention sync
vs async, modem control signals, hardware flow control (of different
types), software flow control, plus serial port issues like io port
addressses and interrupts.  And of course, nowadays you typically add
the issue of establishing a PPP session.  It quickly gets to the point
where the typical user gets overwhelmed.  For someone who isn't
familiar with the technology, getting a modem connection established is
fraught with difficulties.  If it doesn't work, the sheer number of
things that could be wrong can easily move troubleshooting the problem
beyond the capabilities of the ordinary user (particulary if they're
the type who primarily learns via memorization.  While there may be a
few typical mistakes whose solutions can be memorized, you really have
to understand how it all hangs together to do an effective job of
troubleshooting if the 'typical solutions' don't work.).

Ben
-- 
Ben Coleman oloryn at benshome.net      | The attempt to legislatively
http://oloryn.home.mindspring.com/   | micromanage equality results, at
Amateur Radio NJ8J                   | best, in equal misery for all.


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