Re: How long can a serial cable be on my GS?

[lurch@eskimo.com (Erik Kloeppel)]

JJeffries@psu.edu (Jason Jeffries) writes:

<I'd like to put a terminal attatched to my GS in another part of my
<house. (Looking forward to the new GNO kernel.) It's going to take
<quite a stretch of cable to reach it, though. How bad will it be if I
<use, say, 100ft of cable? Should I use these two goofy 50-ft. RS-232
<cables I already have coupled together, or should I buy RS-232 <>
<RJ-whatever adaptors and use 8 conductor phone wire? And lastly, at
<100ft, what kind of speed am I going to be able to use? I presume
<38.4kbaud will be too noisy... Am I going to need some kind of
<short-haul modems? If not, when I wire my cables, do need CTS/RTS flow
<control between the terminal and GS?

Serial is a strange bird.  I've had cable runs of 500 feet work  fine, and I've
had rujns of 20 feet be absolutely worthless.

MOSTLY it depends on A) how electronically noisy your environment is (are you running the cable near flourescent lights, tv's motors, speakers, etc?) and how good the shielding is on the cable.

IN general, 100 feet is not out of the question, if you use a good well shielded
cable (rs-232-c all the way).  HOwever, you may want to consider picking up another 
Apple II and an AppleTalk card (assuming it's a IIe) and do it that way.  I just 
installed a IIGS down in the kitchen - about 75 feet of cable run from ..oops.  You
don't hav a mac..  

Use the serial cable.  I REALLY wish somebody would write server software for the IIGS.

Lurch