> Is is necessary to use a serial multiplexer board. Can't you use a 
> terminal server thing with telnet in to pseudo-terminals. Telnet 
> is reasonably stable and  terminal servers (mostly) also.

The terminal servers I'm familiar with which I could afford don't
support encrypted, authenticated access (cleartext passwords don't
count).  if there's a TS out there which runs sshd and screen, great,
but until then, a reasonable serial mux and a cheep used 486 does
exactly what I want..

						- Bill