[MLB-WIRELESS] Free to any home, and if no takers the bin.....

[Craig Sanders]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 03:25:02PM +1000, Daryl Knight wrote:
> Just a trick question, is there any use for a 4 port serial card these
> days?  Its still hanging around from the good ol' days of dial-up BBS

good for a console server, aka Poor Man's Network KVM. null-modem cables
to serial ports of multiple linux/bsd/whatever boxes. gives console
access from at least the GRUB (or LILO if you're still using that)
prompt - and possibly from the BIOS depending on whether the motherboard
concerned supports serial bios access.

ssh in to the console server and run minicom or similar vt100 terminal
emulator to access the other boxes. connect the 2nd serial port of one
of the other boxes to the first serial port on the console server so you
also have remote console access to it too.



OTOH, USB serial ports are cheap these days and don't have the potential
IRQ problems of ancient (possibly ISA-bus ancient) cards. ditto for dry
solder joints and other physical problems with old and battered-around
cards that have been lying at the bottom of the junk cards box for a few
years.


craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>