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Re: Serial Ports.



In article <ufd94zbjse.fsf@ftp.ardi.com>,
Clifford T. Matthews  <ctm@ardi.com> wrote:
>>>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew Ballard <mballard@lausd.k12.ca.us> writes:
>In article <1.5.4.32.19960418021002.0066ea08@lausd.k12.ca.us> Matthew Ballard <mballard@lausd.k12.ca.us> writes:
>
>
>    Matthew> When Executor supports serial ports, will it also support
>    Matthew> AppleTalk via a port on my computer, because it would be
>    Matthew> useful access the AppleTalk networks at my school.
>    Matthew> Thanks, Matthew
>
>Probably not.  Most likely we'll support AppleTalk over ethernet, instead.


I have been following this discussion on Appletalk over serial ports for 
some time now, and I have one question...

How can someone even start to support a protocol, which runs at ~230
kilobaud through unbuffered 8250's (16540's) that run at max. 115
kilobaud? Besides the baud difference, unbuffered UART's would likely be
losing characters at an astronomical rate (as is evidenced by 
multi-tasking OS's like OS/2 which need at least a buffered UART just to 
do 9600 without bit loss.

However, supporting appletalk over an ethernet card (ethertalk?) would 
also seem to be very limiting because of the cost for individual users. 
How could you hook up your PC to a standard appletalk laser printer using 
an ethernet card, while not incurring much more expense?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Peter Schepers,                 | 
 Dept. of Computing Services,    |   The opinions expressed in the above
 University of Waterloo,         |   rant are those of the poster, and not
 Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.      |   necessarily shared by anybody else on
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