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From: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: A2000 serial port != A1000 (ackkkk!)(and 500 || <> 1000 ||)
Message-ID: <252@gethen.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-Oct-87 05:34:52 EST
Article-I.D.: gethen.252
Posted: Sun Oct 25 05:34:52 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 27-Oct-87 02:56:58 EST
References: <1962@ucbcad.berkeley.edu> <610@louie.udel.EDU> <2548@cbmvax.UUCP> <1903@crash.CTS.COM>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: Sci-Fido - Unix in Oakland
Lines: 28

In article <1903@crash.CTS.COM> ford@crash.CTS.COM (Michael Ditto) writes:
>But there was *NO* reason to change the gender
>of the connector [except that that's the way ibm-pcs have them].
[...]
>Anyone who thinks that (IBM == STANDARD) doesn't deserve to be working with
>modern technology like Amigas.  When IBM made the PC they didn't know
>anything about microcomputers.

You'd better think again.  IBM is the ONLY microcomputer manufacturer
that FOLLOWED the standard.  Go get a copy of the RS-232 document.  It
states, as plain as day, that the DTE end of the connector has a male
connector, and the DCE end has a female.  Since the computer certainly
qualifies as DTE (after all, you're probably connecting the damn thing
to a modem), it SHOULD have a male connector.  Due to the fact that
female connectors are easier to mount on a panel, and are slightly
cheaper, most manufacturers (of both terminals and computers) ignored
the standard, and took it upon themselves to specify a male plug.

Try this:  suppose you have a modem that's 15 feet away, and you only
have two 10' cables.  If you have male-to-male cables, you are out of
luck.  If you have male-to-female cables, like IBM's, just hook 'em
together.  Makes sense to me.  Enough sense that I've done just that, 
more than once.

-- 
----------------
Michael J. Farren      "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness
unisoft!gethen!farren   that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa             Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"