[conspire] DE-9, not DB-9 (was: conspire list hacked?)

[Texx]

I DIDNT say X-o/off was a GOOD change.
I just started noticing that it was the excuse when the hardware
handshaking pins started either going away or being ignored.
This was another thing to make computers simple for dummies.

I actually feel that simplification of machines has been a mistake.
The net should have remained the bastion of smart people.
As soon as we allowed all those morons from A-Ohell, we set the stage for
Face-Crack spreading anti vacine propaganda.

Bring back "alt.tasteless.pics"
The first time the World Trade Centre  was bombed, one of our most prolific
posters disappeared.
Someone eventually found out that he was a maintenance engineer, caught in
the blast in the sub basement
when the floor disolved out from under him and sucked him into a vortex of
falling rubble.
Someone chased down his morgue photo and posted it.
Appropriate, yes?

On Mon, Mar 4, 2019 at 4:34 PM Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

> Quoting Texx (texxgadget at gmail.com):
>
> > The original serial interface was designed for terminals and modems.
> > The RS-232 standard actually has TWO data channels in it, the second
> being
> > a much slower interface.
> > This secong channel was designed for controling the modem and the dialer.
> > The "ATDT" command set allowed "in band signalling" and this removed the
> > need for the second data channel.
> > The "Xon-Xoff" protocol removed the need for hardware handshaking.
>
> As a former BBS sysop / owner / constructor, I strongly disagree.
> Xon/Xoff was a totally inadequate substitute for the hardware-level
> RTS/CTS (ready to send, clear to send) signaling, and everyone who truly
> cared about fast and reliable communication made sure to have hardware
> handshaking present and working.  By comparison, Xon/Xoff was crap, at
> best a second-choice and much-less-reliable fallback if you have shoddy
> hardware that won't do hardware handshaking.
>
> ISTR that my BBS box's serial port was locked to 38,400 bps, for
> communication to the lovely external US Robotics Courier
> Dual-Standard[1] modem driving the line, and the line discipline was
> under the control of the BNU FOSSIL driver.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSSIL This ensured that the buffers to
> and from the modem were never starved even if the data-stream was highly
> compressible, and the hardware handshaking ensured that traffic was
> managed with precision worthy of a Hohenzollern military parade.
>
> Mind you, the bps over the telco line was at that time able to go only
> up to 9600 bps before the effect of compression.  I shut down The
> Skeptic's Board BBS around 1993 because I saw no future in the
> small-time thinking and DOSisms built into Fidotech and related BBS
> standards, and wanted to get away from that.  If I'd upgraded my Courier
> Dual Standard to V.90 (56 kbps) instead of giving it away, I'd certainly
> have locked the serial port to 115,200 bps rather than 38,400.  (I don't
> know if any RS-232C ports supported 224,000 BPS, and no longer care.)
>
> I still have a nice little V.90 US Robotics Sportster (that someone gave
> me) gathering dust in the hardware cabinet, and consider it very
> unlikely to be ever useful again, but, hey, you never know.  External
> modem, of course, because internal modems _still_ suck.  ;->
>
>
>
> > What we got from USB, was the ability to use the same protocol for
> > keyboard, mouse, serial, external drives, and in some cases audio &
> video.
>
> On balance, I think it's been an improvement, because those other
> low-speed buses just weren't very good -- and you no longer have to
> worry about motherboard circutry blowing out just because some moron
> decides to unplug a PS/2 keyboard when system power's running.
>
> OTOH, we have ongoing security amusements when tinkerers show off at
> Blackhat Conference yet another USB device designed to lie to the host
> computer, and the IT press all pretend as if that were new and
> unexpected, while everyone who's read even the _first thing_ about
> USB says in unison 'Yes, we know, already.  Sheesh.'
>
>
> [1] 'Dual-Standard' meant the modem could also do USR's proprietary HST
> protocol across the telco line, which was faster than ITU standards like
> V.34.  If you were handling echomail between BBSes, you really needed
> the ability to do HST and not just ITU standards like V.32.
>
> _______________________________________________
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> conspire at linuxmafia.com
> http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire
>


-- 

R "Texx" Woodworth
Sysadmin, E-Postmaster, IT Molewhacker
"Face down, 9 edge 1st, roadkill on the information superdata highway..."
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