How Does Mail Work? (Also, modems, cables, telebits, etc.)

[Alexis Rosen]

rmtodd at servalan.uucp (Richard Todd) writes:
>alexis at panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) writes:
>>So far, a telebit is the _only_ modem I've managed to make work with A/UX
>>consistently over long periods. I've been experimenting with several
>>different sorts of 2400bps modems for the last two weeks and they're
>>driving me up a wall!!! I'm beginning to suspect that there may be some
>>flaw in A/UX, although I'm at a loss to explain how. What I do know is that
>>I've seen strange behavior that should be impossible, which goes away when
>>I reboot. On the other hand, some behavior is more persistent (and annoying!).
>
>  What sort of behavior are you seeing?  I'm sort of curious.
> [used 1200 and 2400 bps modems for dialout, no problems, uses T1000 for
>  both dial-in and dial-out, no problems]

Well, I described it thoroughly in a posting on October 29, and got no except
from a PC user who tried to help by suggesting I had two ports using the same
I/O address. This is, however, a PC-specific problem...

However, I've learned more since then. Here's the situation now:
All four modems work upon bootup, for both dial-in and dial-out. At some point
thereafter, any or all of them may fail in one of two ways:
1) Won't answer phone. This is because the Mac is no longer asserting DTR,
   even though a getty is running on the port and stty reports that "modem"
   is set for this port.
2) Modem answers phone, but getty doesn't complete the open and call login.
   No signon message is printed. This is because the Mac is not recognizing
   DCD as having been asserted by the modem.

What we don't know yet:
1) There could be a 2.0-related bug in the serial drivers (remember, these
   modems are hooked up to a CommCard). So we've attached one modem to a
   built-in port. We'll see what happens to that one over the next few days.
2) There could be a hardware fault in the card. So we've attached another
   one of the modems to the other CommCard. Again, we'll see...

>>If you want to dial out with A/UX, you'll have to do a "stty -n /dev/ttyxx
>> -modem", but I think telecom is that last thing on earth I'd want to do with
>>A/UX. Use a Mac app instead- I think all the standard ones work fine with
>>A/UX.
> 
>  Well, I don't know what the "standard" Mac apps for telecom are, but I
>tried Zterm and it failed miserably--claimed all serial ports were busy. [...]

Zterm works fine. you must be doing something funny. Likewise MicroPhone.
They have worked since early betas.

---
Alexis Rosen
Owner/Sysadmin, PANIX Public Access Unix, NY
{cmcl2,apple}!panix!alexis