Conference irocz::terminal_servers

    The serial port on the RapidPrint 200 is designed for as a printer
    port only. I don't believe what you are trying will work.
    
    -Don Dodson

    Hi,
    
    Is it possible to get a definitive answer on this.
    
    Customer has purchased many of these units on the understanding that
    he can telnet to the serial port and use it for bidirectional comms,
    however he can't make it work.
    The manual states that the serial port is bidirectional. Why can only
    a printer be used on this device?
    
    Thanks for any help
    Steve Hagan
    Digital CSC
    Sydney.

    
    re .2
    
    Maybe I've got a different book, but the manual I use has never
    led me to believe that one can "telnet to the serial port". I
    mean to say, you'd have to first be able to assign an IP address
    to the individual ports; my docs only indicate the ability
    to assign and address to the RP200 itself. Similarly, the serial
    port has no reverse lat capability (can't talk) nor can it
    listen to lat services....making it pretty clear that it's an
    output port only.
    
    Now, Appendix D does discuss how to use the serial port for
    backchannel if the customer is trying to do postscript with a
    Colorwriter 1000 (only). Since I've not tested this myself, all
    I can do is assume that it works per the manual.....but again,
    this should not be sold to customers as the ability to use
    the serial port for anything but a printer.
    
    Can you point out the section in the docs where the serial
    port is described as bidirectional? I'm always willing to learn...
    
    Dana Peltonen
    CSC/CS Network Services

    Thanks Dana for your reply.
    
    Customer has obviously read the manual incorrectly, however in 
    "Configuring for Lat" section, para 6.4.11 (EK-RPDPR-UG.A01) It
    states:-
    
    "A Unique feature of the RapidPrint200 is the modes provided by the
    serial port. One is the standard bi-directional serial port
    independant enabled and the second is the capability to serve as the
    backchannel for the parallel port independent disabled."
    
    Now the Customers thinking is that a "standard bi-directional serial
    port" would be just that!  But I have pointed him to the fact it
    will not work via Telnet.
    
    Many Thanks.
    Steve Hagan
    

    
    Thanks for the pointer, hadn't noticed that before. I agree
    that a customer could easily misunderstand the function of
    the serial port; the term "standard serial port" would seem to imply
    a terminal port. Especially if you stop and consider that the RP200
    is pretty much the replacement product for the DS250, which in
    addition to it's parallel ports also had serial ports...that were
    bidirectional ("or standard serial ports" if you will), including
    a modem control port! Now, in all fairness to the docs, I still
    could not read into that statement the ability to telnet to that
    individual port; that would be a bit of a stretch of the term
    "standard port". But I can sure understand why we get so many calls
    from customers wanting to use that as a terminal port.
    
    Engineering comments?
    
    DAP
     
     

RE: .5
    
>    Engineering comments?
 
No one left in Product Develpoment Engineering knows anything about the
RapidPrint 200.  Perhaps someone in Product Support Engineering can help. 
It's a re-label of a third-party product.  It was Digital-qualified.  
I don't know what the support arrangements are.

Regards,

Dave

    This is a standard Digital Products product. It was designed to be a
    print server only not a terminal server.