B. Serial Adapter TCP/IP Specification
The fundamental obstacle to allowing a Serial Adapter to commu- nicate with a wired workstation is that the two units communicate in different ways. To address this discrepancy, the user must have a custom application programmed by someone familiar with TCP/ IP networks. This custom TCP/IP program will allow the wired workstation to communicate in the same manner as the Serial Adapter.
Below is a broad overview of the steps necessary to establish communications between a Serial Adapter and a station on a wired Ethernet network.
This procedure is written for the case where one Serial Adapter is talking to a workstation on an Ethernet network; it can easily be expanded to have multiple Serial Adapters communicating with a single wired workstation.
1.Connect a RangeLAN2 Access Point to the wired network.
2.Set the Serial Adapter as a Station and have it synchronize to the Access Point by setting the Domain and Security ID on the Serial Adapter to match the values used by the Access Point.
3.Ensure that the wired workstation is running the TCP/IP protocol.
4.The user must write a custom program to run on the wired workstation in order to communicate with the Serial Adapter. This program must use a library that interfaces with the TCP/IP protocol to send and receive data.
For example, Windows Sockets is the most commonly used interface on a PC and is a standard part of Windows 95. Note
87