Xref: utzoo comp.dcom.lans:2084 comp.periphs:1335 comp.terminals:986
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!kwe
From: kwe@bu-cs.BU.EDU (kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent W. England))
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans,comp.periphs,comp.terminals
Subject: Re: Terminal Servers?
Summary: It depends
Message-ID: <26557@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 9 Dec 88 18:36:13 GMT
References: <147@iquery.UUCP>
Reply-To: kwe@bu-it.bu.edu (Kent England)
Followup-To: comp.dcom.lans
Organization: Boston Univ. Information Tech. Dept.
Lines: 16

In article <147@iquery.UUCP> matt@iquery.UUCP (Matt Reedy) writes:
>We have about 15 *nix boxes running a variety of flavors (Sys V/BSD/Xenix).
>We'd like to have a single terminal in each programmer's office allowing
>connections to any one of these machines (without having to run 15 cables from
>each office).  I've vaguely heard of something called "terminal servers".  Is 
>this what I'm looking for?  Anyone have any info on any brand in particular?
>
	It depends.  Do you have serial ports on these machines and no
Ethernet?  If so, you need a port selector or data pbx.

	Want to yank the serial ports off and use Ethernet?  Then get
terminal servers.

	Otherwise, just hardwire everyone to a machine and use the
existing unix utilities to connect to other machines.

	Option three is cheapest, followed by option one.