23 Aug
2011
23 Aug
'11
4:32 p.m.
On 24 Aug 2011 at 0:02, Pete Turnbull wrote:
Why? Because as quite a lot of people reading this are
already aware,
modern network switches from almost every major vendor (Cisco, HP,
Juniper, Extreme, etc) as well as most proper servers and many disk
shelves have RS232 console ports (or LOM[1] ports), which is how you
initially configure them, even if the ports are sometimes RJ45-style
jacks rather than DE9s.
It isn't just switches; many consumer devices have, if not RS-232
ports, headers (usually 3V logic levels) to hook to a traditional
serial line. I have a DTV converter box with a DE9M--hooking a
9600N81 terminal to it gets me an interactive debug display at
powerup.
My DSL router has a set of 4 pads that are a serial tty console
hookup for the BusyBox Linux.
I have a FAX send/receive box from the early 90's that has a set (10)
of pads that hook to the serial I/O interface on the NEC V40 CPU.
Since the thing also has a 1.44M floppy interface, I've gotten it to
run CP/M 86.
I suspect that if I probe around in some of my other consumer
appliances, I'd find that anything with a decent-sized MPU in it has
a serial interface for some purpose.
One little item I keep around for such stuff is a TTL/CMOS board with
an MAX232N hookup to translate those logic levels to RS232C ones.
Very handy...
--Chuck