Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!portal!exloghou!dave
From: dave@exloghou.portal.com (Dave St.Clair)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: XTerminals and bar-code readers
Summary: NCD serial port
Message-ID: <1991Apr3.144425.12207@exloghou.portal.com>
Date: 3 Apr 91 14:44:25 GMT
References: <1556502476@corona.med.utah.edu>
Organization: Exploration Logging, Inc.
Lines: 59

> Can anyone verify whether or not a bar code wand can be stuck on an
> XTerminal (NCD. DEC). They are typically inserted inline on char.
> based terminals and pcs.

We use NCD 17/14c Xterminals in our application and hook
the serial port to a variety of devices.
The port is easily accessed via a socket from a host machine
(I think its number is 87).  Once you've connected to the socket
you can do whatever you like.

Here's a portion of the code which opens the socket (On a Sun
Sparc 2 running SunOS 4.1.1, NCD 17c software version 2.2.2D)
...

#include <fcntl.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <netdb.h>


#define NCDPORTNUM 87
....

fd = xserial(NCDPORTNUM, ncdname);
......

int xserial(int portnum, char *hostname)
{
struct  sockaddr_in sin; = { AF_INET };
struct hostent *host;

sin.sin_port = htons((u_short)(portnum));

sin.sin_family = AF_INET;
if((s = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, 0)) < 0)
	return(FAILURE);

if((host = gethostbyname(hostname)) == (struct hostent *)0)
	return(FAILURE);

sin.sin_family = host->h_addrtype;
bcopy(host->h_addr, (caddr_t)&sin.sin_addr, host->h_length);

if (connect(s, (struct sockaddr *)&sin, sizeof (sin)) < 0) 
	{
	close(s);
	return(FAILURE);
	}

(void)fcntl(s, F_SETFL,O_NDELAY);	/* set to non-blocking */

return(s);
}



Dave St.Clair
dave@exloghou.portal.com