From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!seismo!hao!menlo70!sytek!zehntel!tektronix!teklabs!terryl Newsgroups: net.micro Title: Re: RS-232 Article-I.D.: teklabs.1796 Posted: Sun Mar 6 04:50:19 1983 Received: Fri Mar 11 08:02:13 1983 References: sri-arpa.554 Before we discovered the wonderful world of Ethernet, we here at Teklabs used to have an 11/44 connected to our 11/70 with an rs-232 line, BUT WE HAD LINE DRIVERS. Cbout reading some of the specs of rs-232 and find out what they specify. If memory serves me correctly(and it never does, especially at 4:30 in the morning), the safest distance for the cable is some- thing like 25 or 50 feet, max. With the line drivers, the above mentioned link was over 300 feet long (probably closer to 500, but I don't remember). The link was used almost exclusively for uucp traffic at 9600 baud, and we never had any serious problems with it. So if you want a reasonably fast and reliable rs-232 link for 2 computers, a line driver is almost a must. Terry Laskodi of Tektronix