12 Sep
2007
12 Sep
'07
12:17 p.m.
On Wednesday 12 September 2007 13:48, Liam Proven wrote:
The problem is, they were all more or less
proprietary. It's a shame
some kind of standardised serial-port system wasn't adopted; even
really low-end kit like a Speccy with I/F 1 had a serial port.
That was the problem with an awful lot of stuff back then...
Just before Ethernet took over, I built a couple of
LANs based on
SAGE's MainLAN, a serial-type system, and I used a lot of Mac-to-Mac
LocalTalk LANs - although actually in the '80s, Farallon PhoneNet took
over quickly. Same computer-side electronics & connectors, so 100%
compatible, but used telephone cables (so was cheaper) and carried a
lot further.
Phone connectors? That's a *wonderful* idea! Way cheaper than the DIN stuff
used for MIDI typically, easier to make the cables for, and with two pairs
of wire you can have both directions at once in one cable and set of
connectors. I like it!
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin