In message <200307110359.XAA17240@Sparkle.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> you write:

|> Canonical CatV cable has eight conductors, only four of which are
|> needed for UTP "Ethernet".  The other four could be used for a simple
|> serial line Just Fine (absent, of course, ground loops and the like -
|> but even that isn't always a problem; I recall one line that had a
|> ground loop carrying so much current there were visible sparks upon
|> plugging or unplugging, but it worked apparently normally).

If I understood the original poster correctly, he does not have a
Cat5 cable, but powerline networking: the network signal is coupled
onto the AC mains power line.

The only practical solution in this situation is a network console
server, either a dedicated appliance (google in comp.sys.sun.* for
recommendations) or another Unix box trustworthy enough.

|> Not that I necessarily recommend playing fast and loose with the spec.
|> But I think this "you _might_ be able to run 3-wire at 2400" is
|> unnecessarily pessimistic.

Do you do amateur radio? In Germany, there used to be a rule that
you could have
_either_
	750 W ERP no matter how you did it
_or_
	unlimited ERP as long as quiescent plate power dissipation
	did not exceed 150 W

There were some hams who ran six standard color TV horizontal
deflection valves rated 400 V DC plate voltage and 35 W plate
power dissipation at 750 V Class C and thus got 4500 W PEP...

Another example is the amplifier I used to use for the bass
accordion at the Musikspielring Sindlingen 1961 e.V. This forced
60 W RMS (=> at least 2 x 15 W plate power dissipation) out of
two PL84 valves spec'd for 250 V DC plate voltage and 12 W plate
power dissipation operated at 650 V...

	vb