> As soon as I pause, the stream of odd characters appears and back to first
> press generates an odd character.  Also, I noticed that disconnecting DTR
> makes the stream of odd characters much longer - from 5-20 characters to
> maybe 300.  Finally `echo Some_text > /dev/ttya` generates garbage.  Is there
> some timing issue with the control lines, I wonder?

RS232 Guesses:

Are you sure that the ground of your devices is at the same voltage?
Any stray currents through the ground? Check with a voltagemeter
before connecting the RS232 line. Signal ground (pin7 on DB25) versus shield
ground (pin1 on DB25)?

If you connect RX to TX (and maybee the control lines to each other)
on the same port, does it echo characters OK?

Harald.