Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!eagle.wesleyan.edu!flinton From: flinton@eagle.wesleyan.edu Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems Subject: Re: Help Please! Message-ID: <1991Mar26.145340.40720@eagle.wesleyan.edu> Date: 26 Mar 91 19:53:39 GMT References: <13586@helios.TAMU.EDU> Organization: Wesleyan University Lines: 38 In article <13586@helios.TAMU.EDU>, shf6774@rigel.tamu.edu (FUENTEZ, SAUL HIRAM) writes: > > Does anyone out there in modemland know how to connect to a BBS (modem #) from > a vax account? I would really, really appreciate any suggestions! Thanks in > advance. E-mail: SHF6774@RIGEL.TAMU.EDU. The simplest, crudest way: get a modem suitable for use w/ the BBS, an A/B switchbox, two appropriately terminated data cables, and a suitable length of appropriately terminated phone cord -- if there's a cable coming out of the wall feeding your VAX terminal -- plug that cable into the A port of the A/B switchbox, connect one of the data cables between the modem and the B port of the A/B switchbox, connect the other data cable between the port on your terminal that the VAX line used to connect to and the COMMON port of the A/B switchbox, and use the phone cord to connect the modem to a phone line, either at a wall junction box or at the L1 and L2 connection points on the network box inside an actual phone. With A selected, you'll be on line with the VAX; with B selected, you'll be online with your modem (you may have to enter Terminal Set-Up to change communications parameters every time) from your terminal and will be able to make it dial out and connect by using the standard ATDxxxxxxxx commands, etc. But don't expect to transfer files between VAX and BBS. Simple still but slightly less crude: make a more sophisticated switchbox than the simple A/B's that are so readily available, so as to be able at will to a) have your terminal simply online with the VAX; b) have your terminal simply online with the modem; c) have your keyboard (KB) feeding the modem, while the modem data output feeds the VAX's input, and the VAX's output feeds your terminal's display tube (CRT); d) have your KB feeding the VAX, while responses from the VAX go to your modem, and the BBS responses via your modem go to your CRT. I've built myself such a device, it's a simple exercise in mechanical switching circuit design to come up with the appropriate dual multi-pole double-throw switchbox circuitry and an afternoon's work, once you have the necessary parts, to cobble such a box and the necessary cables together -- and, provided both your BBS system and your VAX are willing to use the same communications parameters, you should have no impossible problems using it (mine's just dandy). -- Fred