Mainframe emulation and serial comms (was Re: "Toy computers)"

From: Douglas H. Quebbeman <dquebbeman_at_acm.org>
Date: Tue Apr 30 15:32:24 2002

> I have visited the site, but my question is apparently not
> frequent enough... from those who know, will "Hercules"
> talk BISYNC or SNA down a sync serial pipe? I have some
> toys here that emulate PU Type 2s (i.e., include a 3274
> cluster controller emulator) and older HASP and 3780 workstations,
> but they all expect a sync serial feed. I have the modem
> eliminators, etc., so that's not a problem. The problem is
> what to stick in a PeeCee that can be the Host end of the
> conversation (i.e., the 37x5 end, from the viewpoint of my
> peripherals). The Zilog 8530 SIO is smart enough to handle
> the link-level protocol (we used it and the COM5025), but
> outside of the classic Mac/Sun product line, you don't see
> a ZSIO in every box.

I'd think you'd either need a PC serial card that uses a
USART instead of a UART, or a convert of some kind... but
I don't know how the converter would supply synch...

The Data General One notebook used the Intel 8251a USART
for serial I/O; it through me for a loop because writing
an interrupt handler for it is quite different from its
8250-based stablemates.

But it wouldn't be too hard to kludge up a design for a
single-port 8251a-based serial card...

-Douglas Hurst Quebbeman (DougQ at ixnayamspayIgLou.com) [Call me "Doug"]
  Surgically excise the pig-latin from my e-mail address in order to reply
  "The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away." -Tom Waits
Received on Tue Apr 30 2002 - 15:32:24 BST