On Wed, 29 Nov 2000, Ben wrote:

: I connected an off the shelf null modem cable between the VAX (DB25
: connector) and my PC and have tried to run hyperterminal. What I get
: are garbled characters. I have set the PC serial port to 9600, 8N1
: with variously XON/XOFF, hardware control and no-control. 

Garbled characters usually means either wrong parity settings or wrong data
rate--typically the latter.  You may have an nvram setting precluding the
typical 9600bps.

Try different data rates.  If you're getting a _lot_ of garbage, reduce the
speed to 4800 or 2400.  If you're getting fairly brief garbage, increase the
speed to 19200 or 38400.

You can also try 7 data bits, even parity, one stop bit -- I don't know how
all the vaxes function, but I once ran into a SPARC that was set to use even
parity.  :)

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv@wasabisystems.com>  *  http://www.wasabisystems.com/
-- Speed, stability, security, and support.  Wasabi NetBSD:  Run with it.