14 Dec
2008
14 Dec
'08
2:20 p.m.
[...DTE...DCE...]
DEC was one of the few companies that actually got
this right, and
made cables and connectors that actually followed the standard [...]
If just every computer manufacturer had read the
specs, the world
would have been much nicer,
I'm not so sure. It was inevitable that someone would try to connect
two DTEs together directly, as indeed is easily the commonest today.
It would have been much simpler if everything had been specced the same
and all cables had been what today are loosely called null-modem.
The same mistake plagues 10baseT and 100baseTX today. You'd think
they'd've learned from the serial-line mses, but noooo, there are hosts
and hubs and you sometimes want a crossed cable and sometimes don't,
depending on what you're connecting. I really wish they'd specced
everything the same, making all cables the same (what today we call
crossed). At least now with auto-X this mess is easing some extent.
Okay, okay, </rant>....
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