BBC printer port (ever used for anything else?)

You mean a DE9, but anyway... I'd probably do that on a normal Beeb, but this is an Acorn Cambridge Workstation. And while I don't normally worry about modifications, this machine is sufficiently rare that I don't want to do anything irreversable to it (I don't mind soldering bits on the circuit boards, doing the sideways RAM hack, etc, but I don't want to cut holes in it. I have made up a serial cable anyway, I just have to remember to plug it it the right way up. I have never figured out the reason for the pinout of the Beeb serial port. The Tatung Einstein [1] uses the same connector, but the wiring is sane in that turning the plug over swaps TxD with RxD and RTS with CTS, thus giving the null-modem swap. [1] A machine that has a few Beeb-related jokes in the design. The Einstein's system bus is called the 'Pipe', Acorn called the second processor interface the 'Tube'. That itself was a joke -- the Tube is a slang neame for the London Underground (Subway to you guys across the Pond), which of course is an alternative to the bus.... -tony