John wrote that he thought there was a market for a serial-to-Ethernet
"just works" adapter.
I wrote:
If I plug this hypothetical "just works"
serial-to-Ethernet box onto
a serial port on an old computer, and plug the ethernet into the
switch along with my desktop computer, laptop, and wireless router,
what exactly should the box do? And what should I, as the user, do?
Richard wrote:
I'd expect the box to initiate a telnet session to
the ethernet side
A telnet session to where?
How does the box get its IP address? I suppose one possibility would
be DHCP, but that isn't consistent with "just works" because someone
has to have configured a DHCP server. Even if there's already a DHCP
server (e.g., in the wireless router in my example), the user won't
know what IP address it assigned to the box.
How does the box know the serial port parameters to use? If it's
doing telnet, it could expect the other end to tell it using the
RFC 2217 Telnet Com Port Control Option, but that's not ideal
because very little host software supports that option.
and look like a "computer" to the terminal
side.
OK, I'll bite. What does a computer look like?
Obviously all these questions can be answered, but it's not clear
how to answer them such that the product "just works". In fact,
it seems to me like it's impossible to meet the "just works"
objective.
Eric