[plug] UPS's with Linux support

[Paul Wilson]

>Heres a curly one. I have a SOLA UPS Here, and it comes with it's own
>serial
>cable. It does this, because the 9 pin connector on the back of the unit
>does
>NOT comply with RS-232 pinouts. The cable is used to bring this into
>line for
>plugging into a PC.
>It may be wise to use either a breakout box with led's on EVERY pin, and
>not
>expecting the ground to be on pin 5, or a cro to figure what is where.
>More often than not, they just toggle a handshaking pin, rather than
>give anything
>intelligent from thier port.


Even after all this time, the IT industry *still* amazes me ! (I suppose I
ought to be grateful in a curious sort of way). Given a piece of equipment
that needs to pass information to a PC via a serial port, I can see no
reason for not using a serial port on the equipment itself.

I guess that's why I'll never be a hardware designer.

Paul