[rescue] LED Signboard

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Jona Sperty wrote:

> The symon board attaches to the symon server with your standard cat 5
> cable or serial to enet converter.

That must be quite an interesting converter.

> You can't program the board thru the serial port directly ( as I have
> been told) and you do need the symon call center software that runs
> on windows.

I believe you've been told incorrectly, as the call center software
clearly programs the board directly through the serial port.  The
problem is one of knowing the protocol.  Or, rather, the problem is one
of not being able to get the protocol out of the vendor because they'd
rather sell you their software that only runs on Windows.

This is when a vampire tap on the serial line is very useful.  I'd like
to see something like this reverse-engineered, since being able to pop
system data onto an LED display would be really neat in a busy machine
room.

Even just scrolling console messages would be neat.  Or, how about an
uptime clock accurate to 14 significant digits?

-- 
Jonathan Patschke   )  "We're Texans.  We figure out ways to do these
Elgin, TX          (    things..."                    --Bill Bradford