1.3.2.1 Serial Connection

Serial connections are troublesome, slow, tedious, and weird. However, they are cheap and (comparatively) uncomplicated. The data host needs to have a multiport serial board installed and configured correctly. In addition, for security purposes, a restricted shell should be created solely for the use of Cogsys client systems.

The client machines must then run software which can provide at least three things:

1. Terminal emulation
2. File transfer (XMODEM/YMODEM/ZMODEM/Kermit, etc)
3. A script language

We have found that Pibterm Professional 5.0, written by Phil Burns (coincidentally!) at Northwestern University, nicely meets all of these requirements. You can get Pibterm here: ftp://ftp.simtel.net.

All that is then required are a set of scripts which provide the ability to ask the user for testlist/outfile names and are able to transfer those files to and from the data host. Finally, a DOS batch file is used to control the whole system. Examples of such scripts are at the Cogsys home page here:

http://wally.psych.nwu.edu/computing/software/inhouse/cogsys/cogsys.html