Plugging in [Reflections]

A lifetime of experience has made the author cynical about plugging anything into anything else. The world is filled with plugs of such complexity that there isn\´t the slightest probability of "plug-to-plug compatibility." Now of all the communications plugs, the physical link, the RS232 connector, is the simplest. It specifies voltages (plus and minus) that are prehistoric. It even predates Transistor-Transistor logic (TTL). But it is all there is. When forced back to bare copper and elemental, ASCII transmission, RS232 is always there, and we should be thankful, because in the intricacies of the higher layers of communications protocol lies a Tower of Babel - virtual plugs misted in indescribable complexity. Unfortunately even the lowly RS232 connector can have different configurations.