Dial-in gets garbled characters
SteveJ
Hi all -
I have a number of remote systems (host and remote version 5.0.5) I
dial in to for various purposes. The remote systems all use a baud
rate of '9' in the inittab, which is a copy of '3', with the B2400
changed to B9600 (yeah, I know this is archaic but I have old modems
and for other reasons I am stuck with 9600 for now). We copied the
'3' because the comments in inittab indicate it is for modems.
This works fine in all locations but one. In that location I get
garbled characters when the modem answers. I can log in and issue
commands but the characters echoed back to me are heiroglyphs (?) of
some sort. If I change the baud rate to '6' or 'm' in the remote
system inittab, the display is fine.
So, I've worked around it but it is driving me nuts as to what is
going on here. What in the terminal settings of my '9' could be
causing this? Why only at this one location? Anybody got any
ideas???
As always, thanks for the input...
Steve
John Charnetski
anything causes the initial connect to be at 2400 and cycle downward,
hence the mismatch baudrate garbage. The setting '6' also cycles
downward but starts at 9600 giving you a connection at the right baud.
Unless your dial-in lines are very dirty, use 'm' in the inittab; you'll
have fewer baud mismatches.
John C.
Bill Vermillion
<j...@isrp.isrp.ua.edu> wrote:
>Examine the file /etc/gettydefs. Using '3' or a copy of '3' called
>anything causes the initial connect to be at 2400 and cycle
>downward, hence the mismatch baudrate garbage. The setting '6' also
>cycles downward but starts at 9600 giving you a connection at the
>right baud. Unless your dial-in lines are very dirty, use 'm' in
>the inittab; you'll have fewer baud mismatches.
That's almost as bad as the first. DO NOT USE CYCLING RATES.
Once we got to 9600 BPS modems (and the later 2400's that did
compression) the need to cycle modems DCE/DTE to match incoming
baud rates was gone.
Use a fixed rate of your choice. m works fine
--
Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com
Tony Lawrence
>
> Examine the file /etc/gettydefs. Using '3' or a copy of '3' called
> anything causes the initial connect to be at 2400 and cycle downward,
> hence the mismatch baudrate garbage. The setting '6' also cycles
> downward but starts at 9600 giving you a connection at the right baud.
> Unless your dial-in lines are very dirty, use 'm' in the inittab; you'll
> have fewer baud mismatches.
There are two things wrong with that advice in regard to any
modern modem:
First, in order to used a fixed baud rate, you have to tell
the modem that you want a fixed DTE rate. That does not
happen automatically; further the method to accomplish that
varies with different manufacturers, and some incredibly
cheap pieces of crap won't even let you do that at all. For
crap like that, your only choice is to set the modem so that
it will only run at 9600 baud, period. If you do have a
decent modem, the procedure often is to connect to it at the
speed you want the DTE to be set at, and then issue "AT&B1"
followed by saves to nvram (usually "AT&W" and perhaps
"AT&W0")- but some modems, for example Multitechs, can use a
different method.
Secondly, if you do have decent modems capable of 33.6
connects, using "m" artificially and unnecessarily throttles
your throughput. If your serial port isn't an antique, it
should be capable of at least 38400, and "o" would be the
minimum speed setting to use.
See http://www.aplawrence.com/Unixart/hispeed.html for more
details.
--
Tony Lawrence (to...@aplawrence.com)
SCO articles, help, book reviews, tests,
job listings and more : http://www.ApLawrence.com
John Charnetski
> John Charnetski wrote:
> >
> > Examine the file /etc/gettydefs. Using '3' or a copy of '3' called
> > anything causes the initial connect to be at 2400 and cycle downward,
> > hence the mismatch baudrate garbage. The setting '6' also cycles
> > downward but starts at 9600 giving you a connection at the right baud.
> > Unless your dial-in lines are very dirty, use 'm' in the inittab; you'll
> > have fewer baud mismatches.
>
> There are two things wrong with that advice in regard to any
> modern modem:
>
<CUT>
> Secondly, if you do have decent modems capable of 33.6
> connects, using "m" artificially and unnecessarily throttles
> your throughput. If your serial port isn't an antique, it
> should be capable of at least 38400, and "o" would be the
> minimum speed setting to use.
>
> See http://www.aplawrence.com/Unixart/hispeed.html for more
> details.
>
> --
> Tony Lawrence (to...@aplawrence.com)
> SCO articles, help, book reviews, tests,
> job listings and more : http://www.ApLawrence.com
If you read the post carefully, you'll see he doesn't have 'modern' modems.
He asked the time and you tell him how to build a clock. :}
John C.
--
--------
John R. Charnetski BCIS
bc...@simplecom.net Tuscaloosa, AL
Tony Lawrence
>
> Tony Lawrence wrote:
> > There are two things wrong with that advice in regard to any
> > modern modem:
> If you read the post carefully, you'll see he doesn't have 'modern' modems.
> He asked the time and you tell him how to build a clock. :}
Perhaps so. But if he doesn't understand the issues well
enough to comprehend why his cycling baud rates are a
problem, he needs to have the full picture. Otherwise
someday he'll replace those modems with something new and
have no idea why they no longer work.
IMNSHO telling people how to build a clock is far better
than just saying "man clock" or telling them what time it is
now. You told him what time it is; Bill V. and I told him
what he needs to know about time and why he needs to know
it. Perhaps it is actually useful to him to have BOTH
answers: that's the nice thing about newsgroups; any
question is apt to get at least a few slightly different
answers, and having more than one view often contributes to
better understanding. So if all he wanted was a fix to his
immediate concern with no desire for understanding, he got
just that from you. If that's all he wanted, he didn't need
to read my post or Bill's. But if he wanted more, we filled
in at least some of the gaps, and the article I referred him
to would fill in more.
So please do continue to tell people what time it is.
That's quite useful, and may indeed be exactly what they
want. I, on the other hand, will continue telling the
history of time, describing curiousities inherent in certain
timepieces, and giving instructions for building little
special purpose clocks, because that's what *I* like to do.
OK?
John Charnetski
Whoa cowboy, holster those firearms. I was just sharing, perhaps uninvited,
several
years of answering those kind of questions. Sort of like when a youngster asks
"Where did I come from?" Often the answer they need is 'Montgomery, Alabama';
not a treatise on biological processes. Do whatever makes you feel good. BTW, I
really enjoy reading virtually ALL of your responses.
Tony Lawrence
>
> Whoa cowboy, holster those firearms.
I'm not the cowboy; that's Jeffy Hyman.
>I was just sharing, perhaps uninvited,
> several years of answering those kind of questions. Sort of like when a youngster
> asks "Where did I come from?" Often the answer they need is 'Montgomery,
> Alabama'; not a treatise on biological processes. Do whatever makes you feel >
> good. BTW, I really enjoy reading virtually ALL of your responses.
I understand. And, as I said before, it is *good* to give
the "Alabama" answer, because it may be just what the person
wants. OTOH, the nice thing about newsgroups is that you
are apt to get both answers and more.
I will say that I've been a little irritated lately by too
many "man sendmail" type answers (not from you) which, I
think, are generally useless. I'm not referring to someone
who says "Sendmail has many debugging switches that allow
you to manually check certain features from the command
line, see 'man sendmail' for the details" or even the rare
caee where you can say "The man page for 'ftpaccess'
actually is unusually good and contains the details you need
to control your ftp environment", but (to pick a really
crappy example): "man uucp", which is a lousy answer to
almost any question.
However, I suppose it's better to say "man uucp" than
nothing at all, and frankly I tend to do the latter when I
can't summon the energy or the interest to properly answer a
question, so it's probably good that we get those responses
too. Thinking about it, it isn't actually the terse "man
xyz"'s that bother me: it's when it's done by a person who
can and does do better than that I get annoyed. I expect
more from certain people here, and when they cop out, I'm
disappointed :-)
Bill Vermillion
>> Whoa cowboy, holster those firearms.
>I'm not the cowboy; that's Jeffy Hyman.
>>I was just sharing, perhaps uninvited, several years of answering
>>those kind of questions. Sort of like when a youngster asks "Where
>>did I come from?" Often the answer they need is 'Montgomery,
>>Alabama'; not a treatise on biological processes. Do whatever
>>makes you feel > good. BTW, I really enjoy reading virtually ALL
>>of your responses.
>I understand. And, as I said before, it is *good* to give
>the "Alabama" answer, because it may be just what the person
>wants. OTOH, the nice thing about newsgroups is that you
>are apt to get both answers and more.
And also if it were just an answer to one person then it could have
easily gone by email. The idea behind posting answers is that if
one person has the question - there are others who also have
problems - and in my opinion and and answer with an explanation of
the answer is far better than an answer alone.
Take for example the modem discussion which prompted this thread.
The original post said that he had an old 9600bps modem. (back in
those days they were still being called 9600 baud modems - but I've
not seen a baud and data-rate match in standards conforming modems
since the days of 300 baud modems).
The bps and dce/dte match was almost universally required through
the first 2400 bps modems. However when the first 2400 bps modems
introduced error correction and compression, they needed to have
data fed at 9600bps in order to have sufficient data to compress.
So any modem that was made after about 1985 or so can and should
use a locked 9600bps interface rate (or higher), and let the
firmware in the modem handle the rest.
So while the answer with no explanation was correct for the one
question, an explanation of why it is so should be included as all
users problems, while having the same symptoms, may not be the
same.
It's like the old 'take two aspirin and see how you feel in the
morning'. It works for most - but in some instance could be fatal.
Too many people don't want to know details, but there are times
when too little knowledge will totall trash a computer - and in the
larger picture sometimes is fatal. A good example of that are the
Darwin awards.
>I will say that I've been a little irritated lately by too
>many "man sendmail" type answers (not from you) which, I
>think, are generally useless.
OTOH there are those with problem who supply too hints about their
problems. The above example of 'man sendmail' is probably one that
should be more like 'buy the O'Reilly 1100 page book' or post in
comp.mail.sendmail.
>I'm not referring to someone who says .... but (to pick a really
>crappy example): "man uucp", which is a lousy answer to almost any
>question.
Particulary if the question was not about uucp!
(Sorry Tony, but as a straight man you throw such great leading
questions!)
>However, I suppose it's better to say "man uucp" than nothing at
>all, and frankly I tend to do the latter when I can't summon the
>energy or the interest to properly answer a question, so it's
>probably good that we get those responses too. Thinking about it,
>it isn't actually the terse "man xyz"'s that bother me: it's when
>it's done by a person who can and does do better than that I get
>annoyed. I expect more from certain people here, and when they cop
>out, I'm disappointed :-)
I'll agree with you on that point.
Bill
Bill Vermillion
Consider this a semi-retraction. On thinking about this later
there are many ways to help people.
If a person asks a question and an answer is giveb, with no
explanation, then the question is answered, and the problem is
solved. However the person asking the question now only knows how
to solve that particular problem with the same sequence leading to
it.
Answering a question with the answer and an explanation mean the
the person had the problem solved, and if they pay attnetion to the
answer problems with similar symptoms may lead them to solve the
problem on their own. If they pay no attention the details are
lost upon them, put perhaps other have gained insight into the
problem, and hopefully insights on the way to learning to solve
problems.
-------
A slight off-topic drift here. This reminds me of something
Don ??? (worked for Altec, invented room-tuning, ran an audio
seminar/training series call Syn-Aud-Con). The name came
from Synergetic-Audio-Concepts. His explanation of synergy seems
to fit about here.
"Two men meet. The each have a dollar. The exchange dollars and
leave. The each have a dollar."
"Two men meet. The each have an idea. They exhange ideas and
leave. They each now have two ideas. That is synergy".
-------
Back to the flow.
Point a person to the area that will solve their problem and let
them figure it our, or having gone to that area and still needing
help and asking further question, will often mean that the
quesitoner now has a better understanding of the problem and how to
solve it.
The latter is a good learning method if the person is sufficiently
motivated to perform the research, and the person who does that quite
often knows more about the subject area after their work than if
they had just received an answer and an explanation. Surely
they know a lot more than if they had just received an answer.
So we all have different styles of communication and imparting
information to the questioners. I tend to over explain at times,
but that comes from my background. I believe it is better to give
too much knowledge to solve a problem than not enough. I really
disagree with the talk of the new 'just in time learning' for
employees in certain industries. It turns them into nothing more
than biolgical machines.
When I was in radio the only tool I had was my voice and the words that
I used to construct verbal pictures. With no hand-waving,
picture-drawing, and not knowing the learning level of the listener
you have to be somewhat drawn out, otherwise only the quickest
learner gains knowledge while the slower ones are left wondering
what just swept by them. But everone gains - the smart ones find
that there are others for whom the topic isn't as clear, and
perhaps some subtle details which they have previously overlooked.
I've also taught a few audio classes in the past for local a local
school to those who wanted to be recording engineers (the next
career I had after radio). I've been told that I should be a teach
because I explain things so well. (Lets see - broadcasting,
recording, then computers, now more networking. My life has had about
as much planning and direction as a cinema verire production and
about as much focus as a fog bank.)
However, I couldn't do that - because so often it would mean
teaching the same things over and over and the only things that
change are the faces. When you teach something you learn more about
it as you teach it, and I'm the impatient type so I'd just as soon
move right along with those learning. Sort of like starting out
with first graders and teaching them (along with others) all the
way through college graduation. I don't have the mental ability
to remain fresh if I do the same thing over and over again. In
instances like that you can begin to feel like an automoton.
As to questions on the net - I don't often answer questions that
just say "help me with xxx". I'll help people who have at least
made an attempt to help themselves.
But we all have different ways of imparting knowledge. And even
though you may personally disagree with someone who answers a
question with "man whatever", the answer is correct, and if that
directive is followed the person doing the reading will undoubtedly
learn more.
Now that my ramble on that subject that annoys you is over, I'll
mention something that annoys me. (A minor annonyance but still an
anonyance)
That annoyancy is the tendency of people to make [supposedly] funny comments
when someone says "I'm running SCO on my computer".
The first time Bela (I think it was) used "How did you get a
company in your computer" (or words to that effect, I thought it
was funny.
But after seeing so many replies along those lines it's get a bit
tiring. What I've noted is that many of the people to whom these
writings were directed are often newcomers, and we've seen more
than one reply about the attiutudes of regulars here. (I've had
more than one epithet flung in my general direction so I'm not
above criticism myself).
The complainees go off in a huff and threaten to never return.
But that's Usenet for you, and not for the think skinned.
However I've read a lot of different news groups on the 'net since
my fist general access to it in 1985, and in no other group do I
recall ever seeing such comments that tend to offend people who
don't write with the exact syntax required to avoid these jabs.
Anyone who is smart enough to be able to read a news group knows
that when someone says "I run SCO on my computer" that the poster
is running an SCO variant, and isn't an officer or the CEO of SCO,
or even a magician who has managed to stuff an entire building and
employees into a computing device.
It tends to make the newsgroup look cliquish and certainly make
the it appear somewhat unprofessional. I'll personal take
'man whatever' to 'how did you fit those big building into that
itty bitty PC' to adapt a phrase from Freberg who popularized the
"Eight great tomatoes into that little bitty can".
Tony Lawrence
: Now that my ramble on that subject that annoys you is over, I'll
: mention something that annoys me. (A minor annonyance but still an
: anonyance)
: That annoyancy is the tendency of people to make [supposedly] funny comments
: when someone says "I'm running SCO on my computer".
: The first time Bela (I think it was) used "How did you get a
: company in your computer" (or words to that effect, I thought it
: was funny.
: But after seeing so many replies along those lines it's get a bit
: tiring. What I've noted is that many of the people to whom these
: writings were directed are often newcomers, and we've seen more
: than one reply about the attiutudes of regulars here. (I've had
: more than one epithet flung in my general direction so I'm not
: above criticism myself).
100% in agreement on this, and couldn't have said it better. Funny
the first time, dumb now.
--
Tony Lawrence (to...@aplawrence.com)
SCO Articles, Tips, Book Reviews: http://www.aplawrence.com