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From: mark@gcs.com (Mark Bolzern)
Subject: Re: APC UPS owners or potential buyers, trying to show user base
Organization: WorkGroup Solutions (FlagShip) & GCS, Inc.
Date: Tue, 2 Aug 1994 04:42:22 GMT
Message-ID: <Ctw52M.I9o@gcs.com>
References: <CtpoIA.JJH@newsserver.aggregate.com> <31ffcm$9l6@sndsu1.sinet.slb.com> <CttA8L.LBy@newsserver.aggregate.com>
Lines: 31

In article <CttA8L.LBy@newsserver.aggregate.com>,
Rob Healey <rhealey@sirius.aggregate.com> wrote:
>In article <31ffcm$9l6@sndsu1.sinet.slb.com>,
> <michael@starbase.neosoft.com> wrote:
>>
>>In article <CtpoIA.JJH@newsserver.aggregate.com>, 
>>> 	The Smart-UPS's use some sort of dongle RS232 cable if I remember
>>> 	correctly, i.e. it's not a normal RS232 cable since it has extra
>>> 	components in it. Once you have one of those cables its some sort
>>> 	of 1 or 2 letter commands sort of thing to get info out of the
>>> 	UPS.
>>
>>Even if the pinouts are radically different from RS232 - making a new 
>>cable is a trivial task -- you don't have to pay the vendor if you can
>>roll your own.  
>>
>	The emphasis is on the word DONGLE above. I just spoke with an
>	old friend and there is a circuit board that is housed in one
>	end of the cable that has misc. micro electronic parts on it. This
>	could be RS232<->???? converters or some sort of dongle thing. In
>	other words, it's more than just pin x to pin y sort of thing
>	for the Smart UPS from APC.

True, and I blew the brains out of a serial card and a UPS messing with 
this on an APC, and an SCO box not too long ago.

-- 
Mark Bolzern :  mark@gcs.com    USA Tel: (303) 699-7470  Fax: (303) 699-2793 
WorkGroup Solutions, Inc.       The FlagShip "Clipper and XBase on Unix" People
  FlagShip is a 4GL Database Development System & Xbase Porting Tool for Unix
No Runtime Fees   Info at ftp.wgs.com : /pub2/wgs/Filelist OR mail: info@wgs.com