Dumb question about Annex Terminal Server

Well, of course, the most informative answer would be from Steve. But I can offer some speculation (accurate, I hope, but probably worth about what you paid for it). Terminal servers are basically concentrators: they have multiple serial ports, which they multiplex into some kind of data stream over a much faster medium, usually Ethernet. They can be used in either direction; basically, they are a way of putting a whole pile of serial ports on a single machine without needing a lot of serial-port hardware for the machine in question. In this case, my guess would be that a bunch of modems will be connected to the terminal server, so that some small number of hosts (one, probably) can handle that large number of modems without having to find cards for that machine with (what for that hardware is) ridiculously high numbers of serial ports. It's relatively easy to find 16- or 32-port serial cards for a VAX or the like. It's harder for a Sun-3/260. It's even more difficult for an Sbus machine like the SPARCstation-5 he mentioned using. It likely borders on impossible for the NeXT - I can't recall ever even hearing of add-on serial-line hardware for any kind of NeXT (though it probably exists). A terminal server (I don't know why he specified Annex - other people have made them; perhaps he's got some Annex-specific software in mind) allows, effectively, putting all those dozen or so modems on any of those machines relatively easily. /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B