[Info-vax] VMS terminal support

[Jose Baars]

Op woensdag 1 augustus 2012 15:49:12 UTC+2 schreef Stephen Hoffman het volgende:

> It was a reasonable compromise, err, choice, (many) years ago, but
> outside of a JTAG-type application, it's now a legacy connection.
 
For example:
I have a satellite receiver running Linux that sports a DB-9 serial interface at the back for console purposes. The receiver is based on a system-in-a chip Broadcom 7413 Mips processor. On the serial port only send, receive and ground are connected (I suspect using an on chip usb to serial adapter, but I'm no electronics engineer). Using the USB port to feed the GPS signal including PPS over USB via a 5 euro USB to serial adapter (don't pay more, it's really that cheap) produces a lot of jitter, apparently inherent to USB. So now I use another little system with an old-fashioned serial port for that purpose.

>Someday, the kids will staring at those giant clunky serial adapters in
> some museum case, with no idea what a mess serial comms was. 

>From discussions here and elsewhere, USB is not the big step forward everybody hoped for, although soldering alternative cables can be eliminated as a possible solution, that's at least some progress.