From the nimble fingers of Paul Bruneau (paul_bruneau@...)
(18/2/2002 10:37 AM) came...

> Because I've been having trouble with Xon/Xoff handshake, I thought I'd
> give hardware handshaking a try. I have been using DIN to DB-25 adapter
> cables to hook my serial printers to my Macs. I remember that to use
> hardware handshaking used to require a special nine-pin serial cable on
> the Mac side. Is this correct or does a "regular" 8-pin DIN type of
> cable work?

It seem to me that the 9 pin connector was for a "Geoport" which also
supplied power (12 VDC, 150 mA) to that connector; the 8 pin one has all
that is necessary for hardware handshaking.

> PS: Is there anyone out there who is successfully using Xon/Xoff in FB3?
> By successfully, I mean is it successfully stopping the output when the
> serial device fills up? For me, everything is great until label #50 or
> so, where data loss occurs due to overflow.

I use Xon/Xoff in a system here, but there might have been some cheating,
since I also wrote the code for the microcomputer at the other end of the
cable; that software was written based entirely on what I saw FB3 doing (as
regards the Xon/Xoff bit). If FB3 was non-standard, then so was the code I
wrote for the micro. What does that tell you???

One thing to note, though... You should allocate a serial buffer big enough
to hold everything you might write to the port, because you MIGHT not know
(unless you've taken extraordinary measures) how much of your data has
already been sent.
-- 
Ted Spencer; ted@...
--
What if The Earth, for its own survival, finds it must rid itself of us?
(Bruce Cockburn)