[vcf-midatlantic] portable terminal preferences

[Neil Cherry]

On 1/3/21 10:01 PM, Jameel Akari via vcf-midatlantic wrote:

> Bringing us to USB-to-RS232 dongles, on which I’ll have to disagree, or at least say that your mileage may vary considerably.  If
> you find one that works fine for you, it really opens up your options.

I have to agree with Herb on this one. I have friends who work on Railroad equipment
that needs RS232C (supports +/- 25V). We've seen a lot of equipment that doesn't work
well with USB adapters because they can't source the current. I do think the good
PL-xxxx RS232C dongle work but the lesser ones fail miserable. If you drop a line
driver in between it then works.

On the issue of USB 1.1 (whose packet can handle 8 bytes) and serially connected devices:
my friends and I have seen a problem with hand shaking skid (signal wait and sender
skids to a stop). We've seen where changing the inter-character delays can help with
this. Also the new line delays.

That doesn't mean it can't work but you've got to know that there is a problem and
were to look. I use a cheap ch340 USB TTl dongle and I have to cut a line at a time
to paste to the device (115k).

As far as a portable device, I use a chromebook as my serial terminal.

-- 
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry       ncherry at linuxha.com
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