Ask a Silly Question ...

[Rich Grise]

Hi. I just bought a new computer, and was thinking of ways to get all
my stuff
from the old computer to the new one. I thought, "serial link," which
would
be fun anyway. So, since the local RS is in disarray during
remodeling, I went
to the local Home Club and got some 4-conductor, jacketed, shielded
wire.So, OK, cool - I've got that stranded bare drain wire, which is
frame ground,
obviously, and a red, green, black, and white wire. So black or white
would
be signal ground, and red/green RxD and TxD. So, what's the thing to
do with
the excess wire that makes the most sense? There _are_ four_
handshake lines,
if I want 1/4-duplex handshaking. If I did that, are there any ideas
as to
which particular wire (RTS -> CTS, DTR -> DSR, one way or the other)
it
would do any good to connect? Or should I just tie it off.

Thanks!
Rich

If you want to email me, elide 'ard'.

 

[Joseph Legris]

Hi. I just bought a new computer, and was thinking of ways to get all
my stuff
from the old computer to the new one. I thought, "serial link," which
would
be fun anyway. So, since the local RS is in disarray during
remodeling, I went
to the local Home Club and got some 4-conductor, jacketed, shielded
wire.So, OK, cool - I've got that stranded bare drain wire, which is
frame ground,
obviously, and a red, green, black, and white wire. So black or white
would
be signal ground, and red/green RxD and TxD. So, what's the thing to
do with
the excess wire that makes the most sense? There _are_ four_
handshake lines,
if I want 1/4-duplex handshaking. If I did that, are there any ideas
as to
which particular wire (RTS -> CTS, DTR -> DSR, one way or the other)
it
would do any good to connect? Or should I just tie it off.

Thanks!
Rich

If you want to email me, elide 'ard'.

You should make a null modem cable, but if you want it to work with most
software you'll need 7 wires. Info here:

http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/dccmain.htm

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

Hi. I just bought a new computer, and was thinking of ways to get all
my stuff
from the old computer to the new one. I thought, "serial link," which
would
be fun anyway. So, since the local RS is in disarray during
remodeling, I went
to the local Home Club and got some 4-conductor, jacketed, shielded
wire.So, OK, cool - I've got that stranded bare drain wire, which is
frame ground,
obviously, and a red, green, black, and white wire. So black or white
would
be signal ground, and red/green RxD and TxD. So, what's the thing to
do with
the excess wire that makes the most sense? There _are_ four_
handshake lines,
if I want 1/4-duplex handshaking. If I did that, are there any ideas
as to
which particular wire (RTS -> CTS, DTR -> DSR, one way or the other)
it
would do any good to connect? Or should I just tie it off.

The last time I did something like that I used something called
generically a "Laplink cable" after the makers of an old program. and
the INTERLNK.EXE and INTERSVR.EXE programs that were part of DOS.

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/1998121609495725

It works with two serial or two parallel ports, IIRC. I think I paid
about $6 for the cable, which has two connectors on each end (a DB-9
and a DB-25 of one sex or the tuther).

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Melvin Stevens]

Have you considerd moving the old hard drive into the new system
temporarily? It is the easiest solution.

Melvin Stevens

 

[John Jardine]

Hi. I just bought a new computer, and was thinking of ways to get all
my stuff
from the old computer to the new one. I thought, "serial link," which
would
be fun anyway. So, since the local RS is in disarray during
remodeling, I went
to the local Home Club and got some 4-conductor, jacketed, shielded
wire.So, OK, cool - I've got that stranded bare drain wire, which is
frame ground,
obviously, and a red, green, black, and white wire. So black or white
would
be signal ground, and red/green RxD and TxD. So, what's the thing to
do with
the excess wire that makes the most sense? There _are_ four_
handshake lines,
if I want 1/4-duplex handshaking. If I did that, are there any ideas
as to
which particular wire (RTS -> CTS, DTR -> DSR, one way or the other)
it
would do any good to connect? Or should I just tie it off.

Thanks!
Rich

If you want to email me, elide 'ard'.

To transfer my old PC's hard disc contents (1 Gbyte) to this PC's hard disc
I made up a "laplink" type cable that connects to both the LPT's. Data is
transferred a nibble at a time and is fast. The Laplink wiring is standard
and a number of web sites carry it. Total transfer time was something like
an hour.
Windows 95/98 carries the programme as something like ...
"Start/Programmes/Accessories/Communications/Direct cable connection". Run
this prog' on both PC's and copy the directories from drive to drive as if
both PCs were just one PC.
regards
john

 

[Frank Bemelman]

To transfer my old PC's hard disc contents (1 Gbyte) to this PC's hard disc
I made up a "laplink" type cable that connects to both the LPT's. Data is
transferred a nibble at a time and is fast. The Laplink wiring is standard
and a number of web sites carry it. Total transfer time was something like
an hour.
Windows 95/98 carries the programme as something like ...
"Start/Programmes/Accessories/Communications/Direct cable connection". Run
this prog' on both PC's and copy the directories from drive to drive as if
both PCs were just one PC.

That pretty fast. I thought LPT traffic was limited to some 100K transfers
per second, and being nibbles that would be some 50Kbyte per second or
180Mbyte per hour.

But who cares, it certainly beats using floppies

 

[Dana Raymond]

I don't know if laplink uses them but all modern centronic printer ports
support SPP, EPP, and EPT modes of operation. EPT can tranfer megabytes per
second, assuming the rest of the system can handle it.

Dana Frank Raymond

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

That pretty fast. I thought LPT traffic was limited to some 100K transfers
per second, and being nibbles that would be some 50Kbyte per second or
180Mbyte per hour.

But who cares, it certainly beats using floppies

There are other ways.. if it's got a modern O/S, drop a $10 network
card into it.. or temporarily install a CD-RW drive.. or move the old
HDD over to the new computer temporarily.

If it's a laptop, the options are more limited, but there are
inexpensive USB<->ethernet devices, and you can get inexpensive
adapters to fit laptop 2.5" drives into desktop systems.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[John Jardine]

That pretty fast. I thought LPT traffic was limited to some 100K transfers
per second, and being nibbles that would be some 50Kbyte per second or
180Mbyte per hour.

But who cares, it certainly beats using floppies

You're right!. Looking back I remember *not* transferring Doom and
Wolfenstein. Must have saved me a couple of hours at least .
regards
john

 

[Don Kelly]

Have you considerd moving the old hard drive into the new system
temporarily? It is the easiest solution.

Melvin Stevens

 

[Lizard Blizzard]

Hi. I just bought a new computer, and was thinking of ways to get all
my stuff
from the old computer to the new one. I thought, "serial link," which
would
be fun anyway. So, since the local RS is in disarray during
remodeling, I went
to the local Home Club and got some 4-conductor, jacketed, shielded
wire.So, OK, cool - I've got that stranded bare drain wire, which is
frame ground,
obviously, and a red, green, black, and white wire. So black or white
would
be signal ground, and red/green RxD and TxD. So, what's the thing to
do with
the excess wire that makes the most sense? There _are_ four_
handshake lines,
if I want 1/4-duplex handshaking. If I did that, are there any ideas
as to
which particular wire (RTS -> CTS, DTR -> DSR, one way or the other)
it
would do any good to connect? Or should I just tie it off.

You tie the DSR and DTR together (pins 8 and 20) on each end. Then you
send the RTS on each end to the CTS of the opposite end. This is the
standard null modem crossover cable. You can connect the shield on each
end to both the shield pin 1 and sig ground pin 7, leaving all four
insulated wires for signals.

BTW, we will see you here some time late next week, after you get thru
transferring all the stuff. Serial isn't fast enough fore today's data
'aggregation'. You really need a Cat5 crossover cable for a pair of NICs.

 

[unix-freak]

Hi. I just bought a new computer, and was thinking of ways to get all
my stuff
from the old computer to the new one. I thought, "serial link," which
would
be fun anyway. So, since the local RS is in disarray during
remodeling, I went
to the local Home Club and got some 4-conductor, jacketed, shielded
wire.So, OK, cool - I've got that stranded bare drain wire, which is
frame ground,
obviously, and a red, green, black, and white wire. So black or white
would
be signal ground, and red/green RxD and TxD. So, what's the thing to
do with
the excess wire that makes the most sense? There _are_ four_
handshake lines,
if I want 1/4-duplex handshaking. If I did that, are there any ideas
as to
which particular wire (RTS -> CTS, DTR -> DSR, one way or the other)
it
would do any good to connect? Or should I just tie it off.

Thanks!
Rich

If you want to email me, elide 'ard'.

If you have nics in each puter, then why not transfer files to the
tune of millions of bytes per second as opposed to serial port's
thousands.
Just make or buy a crossover network cable.

 

[Lizard Blizzard]

You should make a null modem cable, but if you want it to work with most
software you'll need 7 wires. Info here:

You will _not_ need 7 wires! For a null modem, using software
handshake, AKA XON/XOFF, all you need is three, Txd, Rxd, and sig gnd.
Or 5 wires for hardware handshake.

http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/dccmain.htm

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[Lizard Blizzard]

Have you considerd moving the old hard drive into the new system
temporarily? It is the easiest solution.

It's the fastest but not the easiest. Most users haven't even got the
knowledge to plug the ribbon cable in correctly, not to mention opening
up the case (unless it's a Dell ). The easiest is to get either a
parallel port "Laplink" cable or a USB crossover cable and connect the
two PCs together. If you have a USB 1.1, you will get about 100kB/s and
a little bit faster with the parallel cable. If you have USB 2.0, it
can be as fast as the hard disk, which might be in the 40 MB/s range.
These are just rough estimates because of other variables such as
processor speed, bus speeds, HDD speed, etc. It's easy to connect them
with a Cat5 crossover cable, but not all PCs come with a NIC - newer
ones have it built into the MoBo.

But for backup purposes, everyone should already have some way of
backing up the HDD, such as Ghost and an external HDD with USB 2.0. Or
else be like the lady at our club, who has a sweatshirt that says:

BACKUPS ARE FOR SISSIES!

 

[Lizard Blizzard]

I don't know if laplink uses them but all modern centronic printer ports
support SPP, EPP, and EPT modes of operation. EPT can tranfer megabytes per
second, assuming the rest of the system can handle it.

more like megabits per second. The slew rate of a parallel port is
limited for some reason, might be for RFI or part 68 regulations.

Dana Frank Raymond

[snip]

 

[Andre]

You should make a null modem cable, but if you want it to work with most
software you'll need 7 wires. Info here:

1.40 UKP from Mr CPC

 

[Rich Grise]

...
You tie the DSR and DTR together (pins 8 and 20) on each end. Then you
send the RTS on each end to the CTS of the opposite end. This is the
standard null modem crossover cable. You can connect the shield on each
end to both the shield pin 1 and sig ground pin 7, leaving all four
insulated wires for signals.

BTW, we will see you here some time late next week, after you get thru
transferring all the stuff. Serial isn't fast enough fore today's data
'aggregation'. You really need a Cat5 crossover cable for a pair of NICs.

Thanks! That's a null modem, after all, which I found after a little
research. The guy at the comp. place offered to sell me one for twenty
bucks, but I'm a hacker. Connectors are about two bucks at RS, wire is
free, and I already have a crimper.

At first, I was going to move the drive, but I'm kinda reluctant to
start messing with a brand spanking new system, and I've realized,
hey, I've got two fully operational computers here! The new one has
Win 2000, and the old one has Win 95 and Slackware Linux (one at a
time, of course.) I also have a Motorola ICS05 in-circuit simulator,
and at one point had the serial port going at 115000 bps or something
mind-boggling.

In any case, connecting them together will be fun; I plan to try both
windows networking file sharing, and set up the HTTP server (Apache) on
the old box, and explore it with the new box via IE and DCC. (anybody
ever heard of a wireless DSL link? Not a wireless LAN with a DSL box
and wire, but a box that sends the DSL by RF, a la cell phone? Thanks!)

Thanks, Everybody!

Incidentally, I figured out why people are so prone to pop into the
NG to ask a question when it's pretty clear that they haven't done
much, if any, research - one, newbies don't know how, but more subtle,
and possibly more important, is that after sitting at the computer all
day, with our reference books and soldering iron and crap, staring at
the same four walls, day in and day out, the NGs are the closest thing
to human contact some of us make outside of the office! %-]

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Lord Garth]

Incidentally, I figured out why people are so prone to pop into the
NG to ask a question when it's pretty clear that they haven't done
much, if any, research - one, newbies don't know how, but more subtle,
and possibly more important, is that after sitting at the computer all
day, with our reference books and soldering iron and crap, staring at
the same four walls, day in and day out, the NGs are the closest thing
to human contact some of us make outside of the office! %-]

Cheers!
Rich

"...undemanding contact in your happy solitude." --- Geddy Lee (Spirit of
the Radio, Rush)

 

[Jim Thompson]

On 28 Aug 2003 16:19:54 -0700, [email protected] (Rich Grise)
wrote:

[snip]

Incidentally, I figured out why people are so prone to pop into the
NG to ask a question when it's pretty clear that they haven't done
much, if any, research - one, newbies don't know how, but more subtle,
and possibly more important, is that after sitting at the computer all
day, with our reference books and soldering iron and crap, staring at
the same four walls, day in and day out, the NGs are the closest thing
to human contact some of us make outside of the office! %-]

Cheers!
Rich

Absolutely! We need to have a reunion !-)

...Jim Thompson

 

[Don Bruder]

Incidentally, I figured out why people are so prone to pop into the
NG to ask a question when it's pretty clear that they haven't done
much, if any, research - one, newbies don't know how, but more subtle,
and possibly more important, is that after sitting at the computer all
day, with our reference books and soldering iron and crap, staring at
the same four walls, day in and day out, the NGs are the closest thing
to human contact some of us make outside of the office! %-]

Cheers!
Rich

"...undemanding contact in your happy solitude." --- Geddy Lee (Spirit of
the Radio, Rush)

Proper attribution and title: Neil Peart (The Spirit Of Radio)

When it comes to Rush, even though Geddy does 99.9% of the vocals, the
creative process is fairly "compartmentalized" - Neil writes the lyrics,
and hands them off to Geddy. Geddy chases down Alex, and together, they
write some music to go with 'em, then hand the whole thing back to Neil
to see if he likes it. He tweaks a little here and there, figures out
what the drum sound is going to be, they all get into the studio to work
out any kinks, and next thing you know, there's another piece waiting to
be heard by those who have enough taste to appreciate the very best,
musically speaking.

And yes, I'm a nit-picky Rush fan. So sue me