Its quite common....
Nearly all of the Cisco equipment have RJ45 console ports on them, even
Radio shack sells DB25/RJ45 hook kits for making connectors. I just
recently picked up a Synoptics 28115 switch for my in-home network (I wanted
one as it was the first switch I had ever installed back in 1994) and it too
has a standard RJ45 console port on it. The great thing about the
console ports on most devices is that they use standard straight run CAT5
cables so you don't have to make up a custom one.
Curt
----- Original Message -----
From: "Antonio Carlini" <Antonio.Carlini(a)riverstonenet.com>
To: <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 10:53 AM
Subject: RE: Network card for LaserJet
F.Y.I. - My
Cabletron MRXI hubs have RJ-45 sockets, for hooking up
to a serial VT420 terminal... :)
But, yes, I agree. Those hubs are the only time _I've_ seen RJ-45
used for serial communication.
Various terminal servers use RJ45 for serial
comms. One of the selling points of CAT5 was
that you wire your building once with CAT5 and
then can use the same wires for voice and data.
The data was usually either ethernet traffic
or serial comms (for printers and such). The
connectors were invariably (at least in my experince)
RJ45 for both ethernet and serial (and ISDN too).
Antonio