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From: jstarr@ANAD.ARPA (James Starr Network Control Branch  USAISC Anniston)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: FOR WHAT ITS WORTH  BASTARDIZED PROTOCOLS
Message-ID: <8708251509.AA21532@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Tue, 25-Aug-87 09:18:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8708251509.AA21532
Posted: Tue Aug 25 09:18:25 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Aug-87 06:35:44 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
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The RS-232C standard is undoubtedly the most corrupted and bastardized
standard in the world. In fact the only thing I have not seen changed
is the physical size of the connector, the pin spacing and pin 7 being
signal ground.

Here at Anniston we have a wide varity of computers, data communications
equipment and protocol converters. It is unbelievable what vendors have
done in the name of RS-232C. Without a breakout box to see what is going
on we would have been lost.

Most of our host use X-ON  X-OFF flow control but we have many that use
RTS - CTS as flow control. A slow speed printer connected to a higher
speed data circuit, for example. When the printer buffer is full it drops
CTS to the host port/comm port. The host stops sending data until CTS is
high again. DTR and DSR play no role in this flow control method. This
flow control "protocol" is used in async as well as sync circuits.

Vendors who corrupt the RS-232C standard (or any other for that matter)
should be sentenced to two years of making special cables to interface
bastardized ports.


Jim Starr