Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!noao!arizona!joel
From: joel@arizona.edu (Joel Snyder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.att
Subject: Re: standards and ATT
Summary: DTE is male and DCE is female
Keywords: RS-232
Message-ID: <7932@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 17 Nov 88 17:51:57 GMT
References: <851@sceard.UUCP> <1415@neoucom.UUCP>
Reply-To: jms@mis.arizona.edu (Joel Snyder)
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Arizona MIS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 25

Sorry... According to December, 1985, EIA-232-D, section 3.2.1:

"Figure 3.1 illustrates the DTE connector which has male (pin)
contacts and a female shell (plug connector).  Figure 3.2 
illustrates the DCE connector which has female (socket) contacts
and a male shell (receptacle connector).
(text on numbering and dimensions deleted)"

Here are a few other myth-busters:

Section 1.3: "This standards is applicable for use in data signalling
rates in the range from zero to a nominal upper limit of 20,000 bits
per second."  (ie, there is no explicit limit, but the advice is that
19.2K is normal and you probably won't get away with signalling at 56K)

There is no explicit cable length in EIA-232-D.  IN PARTICULAR, the
real answer is that the designer has the responsibility of building
a circuit which is capable of driving all the capacitance in the driver
PLUS the capacitance in the cable.  It then becomes the responsibility
of the designer to specify the cable length.  For all intents and purposes,
you have 2500 picofarads to play with.  If you can build a ten thousand
foot cable with less than 2000 picofarads capacitance, you can
run 232 that long.

jms