Re: Attaching Serial Devices to Irix 6.[4,5]

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William Sherman -Visualization (wsherman++at++ncsa.uiuc.edu)
Tue, 3 Nov 1998 13:44:09 -0600 (CST)


> Hi folks
>
> Has anyone succeeded in attaching either a Flock of Birds or Polhemus
> tracker to an Onyx2 running Irix 6.[4,5] ? The set-up notes I have for
> both sensors refer to Irix 5.2 (or earlier) and I know that the termio
> serial port tructures have changed since then, for example.

In addition to checking the permissions, and making sure you've
adjusted your cabling to the new "standard" (cough), another
possibility to look for is not necessarily which OS you are
running on, but which OS you compile on.

We've had a Flock of Birds connected to our 6.4 Onyx2 with no problem,
and a PC sending serial information to a 6.5.1 Onyx2 also without problem.
However, in both cases the software was compiled either on a 6.2
machine, or in most cases on a 5.3 machine (better cross-platform
compatibility when using the older OS).

In particular, there were some changes made in the recent OSes that change
how the baud rate is set when opening a port -- it used to be a bit-wise
mask, now it is the integer value of the rate. I guess this is the
POSIX standard. The problem is that you have to find this out for
yourself, the error messages aren't that much help in this case.

> Colin
  

> From: don_burns++at++peru.csd.sgi.com (Don Burns)
>
> I have seen both devices attached to Onyx2's under both OSs. I would double
> check serial cables that you are using. I believe the Onyx2 uses a more
> "standard" 9 pin pin-out that is compatible with most null-modem cables you get
> at your friendly local PC supermarket.
> -don

Certainly more common, and now the defacto standard, but I can't
stand it when big companies come along and even when an accepted
standard actually exists, and is documented, decide that they
want to do it a little differently. Nothing major, lets just
switch all the pins around so people will have to purchase our
cables. I mean, who did IBM think they were? Microsoft?

In our lab, I use RJ-45 connectors almost exclusively. It saves
a lot of pain when manufacturers do things like switch from the
true standard to the bastardized standard. The major problem
with RJ-45 was tracking down what the standard was for the
8-pin connector -- but I found it. If you're interested, I
keep all my serial connector info at:
        http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/VR/Info/serial_info.html

(corrections/additions humbly accepted).

        Bill

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