Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: HELP -- Handshaking on 520ST serial ports
Message-ID: <7603@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Feb-87 01:54:42 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7603
Posted: Sun Feb  1 01:54:42 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 1-Feb-87 01:54:42 EST
References: <2453@well.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 18

> ... hardware handshaking control of the serial ports? A serial
> port is NOT really standard RS232 unless it can do this...

Um, I hate to point this out, but the RS232 standard -- yes, there really
is one, although almost nobody in the microcomputer world seems to have
bothered to read it -- has *NO* hardware handshaking.  None.  Zero.  The
lines that look like they might be for hardware handshaking, notably CTS,
RTS, DSR, and DTR, are in fact for other purposes entirely.  Try hooking
up your hardware-handshaking device to a modem and you'll discover this
very quickly; modems are what RS232 was originally built for, and modems
are still the closest things to true RS232-standard devices.

I can sympathize with a desire for hardware handshaking, and I agree that
it's (a) common and (b) useful, but it is not "standard" in any precise
sense of the word.
-- 
Legalize			Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
freedom!			{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry