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0 pointsRinzler891y ago0 comments

>I think a better solution would have been to use the serial port rather than the modem port to send a fax.

From what I could Google, that laptop doesn't have a traditional RS-232 serial port but a DIN-8 RS-422 serial port. Still, it's serial, it's standard and very well documented, easy to acquire and easy to hook up.

I'd definitely would have used that instead to transfer data, especially since I could find USB to RS-422 port converters online easy and cheap[1]. I'm not sure why the author didn't try this, or maybe he tried but had no app to serialize file transfers?

Feels like a missing lead the article doesn't touch on.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Converter-Adapter-Supports-Win...

0 comments

kalleboo1y ago

The RS-422 ports are backwards compatible with RS-232, so you don't even need a special RS-422 adapter to talk to them.

The RS-422 support is just there to support LocalTalk networking.

NegativeLatency1y ago

I think if there was another "bridge" mac it would've been easier (setup LocalTalk over the serial port, could theoretically send the required TCP/IP libraries, to make it easier to go straight to a modern computer). I'd guess that the comment about "but no networking software installed." includes not having something like ZTerm installed already for direct serial communication, and also not having MacTCP or OpenTransport installed on the old mac (not to mention the missing hardware to set that up)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTerm https://lowendmac.com/1998/tcpip-over-localtalk/

I have a few old macs that I play with from time to time, and it's certainly possible to network them to modern computers, just becoming increasingly hard with the number of old software and hardware items you have to keep around to do it.

Rinzler89OP1y ago

>I think if there was another "bridge" mac it would've been easier (setup LocalTalk over the serial port

But serial communication doesn't require another Mac to receive the data since it's just raw HEX/ASCII bytes over the standard serial protocol. You can pick up the data with an Arduino.

Nor does serial mandate any handshake or a master-slave sync to work. You're free to shoot those bytes on the empty wire for all it cares. If someone picks them up good, if not, just as good.

NegativeLatency1y ago

Sure, but IDK how you'd send them on a mac without the software to do it?

Is there even an environment you can program in? Can Applescript on classic macos do serial stuff in any form?

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0 pointsRinzler891y ago0 comments

>I think a better solution would have been to use the serial port rather than the modem port to send a fax.

Feels like a missing lead the article doesn't touch on.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Serial-Converter-Adapter-Supports-Win...

0 comments

kalleboo1y ago

The RS-422 ports are backwards compatible with RS-232, so you don't even need a special RS-422 adapter to talk to them.

The RS-422 support is just there to support LocalTalk networking.

NegativeLatency1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZTerm https://lowendmac.com/1998/tcpip-over-localtalk/

Rinzler89OP1y ago

>I think if there was another "bridge" mac it would've been easier (setup LocalTalk over the serial port

But serial communication doesn't require another Mac to receive the data since it's just raw HEX/ASCII bytes over the standard serial protocol. You can pick up the data with an Arduino.

Nor does serial mandate any handshake or a master-slave sync to work. You're free to shoot those bytes on the empty wire for all it cares. If someone picks them up good, if not, just as good.

NegativeLatency1y ago

Sure, but IDK how you'd send them on a mac without the software to do it?

Is there even an environment you can program in? Can Applescript on classic macos do serial stuff in any form?

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse