transmitting BREAK

[David Wiseman]

Watch those breaks! For those of you who are unable to generate breaks
(either because your kernel won't or you don't have sources to do it
yourself) you may be in trouble. I strongly suggest that if possible
you get your switch changed, we did. Although we can generate breaks
if necessary we have  found that switching equipment (or autobaud
detectors) are much too tempermental (mostly temper, partly mental)
for most people. Even users at terminals had difficulty convincing
the switches that they had actually "typed" a break. 

We eventually got the switch changed. It turns out that there are other
ways that switches are/can be configured to watch for terminals. We are
now using a DTR sense method which never fails. This has also
made it much easier for our machines to talk back out through the
switch; simple opens and closes (with appropriate wiring of the data line)
get and drop its attention. Admittedly, this is a feature of the switch
but...

If you absolutely MUST generate a break the only sure fire way is a small
"break box" which sits on the data line and generates a break when its
button is pressed. This isn't an elegant solution but it does work. Such
boxes are available from various suppliers and your friendly neighbourhood
maintenance types should be able to whip one up for you.

Although it is true that "close approximations" will work some of the
time I have found that they don't work enough of the time. And, in fact,
some equipment is too "smart" to be fooled in this manner.

When all else fails, change the hardware.

	...!utzoo!uwo!deepthot!watmath!...
		   !	 !
		 magi	magi

	(David Wiseman @ UWO Comp Sci, London Canada)