From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Aug 29 21:01:21 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id VAA16935 for questions-outgoing; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 21:01:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nico.telstra.net (nico.telstra.net [139.130.204.16]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id VAA16927 for ; Fri, 29 Aug 1997 21:01:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (gregl1.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.136.133]) by nico.telstra.net (8.6.10/8.6.10) with ESMTP id OAA21462; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 14:00:40 +1000 Received: (grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.6.12) id NAA14911; Sat, 30 Aug 1997 13:30:39 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19970830133038.30783@lemis.com> Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 13:30:38 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Wes Peters Cc: rjob@gulftel.com, questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ppp and internal modem References: <3404CEFA.BDA4221F@gulftel.com> <199708290552.XAA01427@obie.softweyr.ml.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.81e In-Reply-To: <199708290552.XAA01427@obie.softweyr.ml.org>; from Wes Peters on Thu, Aug 28, 1997 at 11:52:14PM -0600 Organisation: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8250 Fax: +61-8-8388-8250 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Fight-Spam-Now: http://www.cauce.org Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, Aug 28, 1997 at 11:52:14PM -0600, Wes Peters wrote: > bob olbrich writes: >> Here's some new thoughts. During the FreeBSD installation procedure >> you have to select "ppp interface on serial port 1 (com2)". This >> sounds strange. We are trying for com1 are we not. > > No. Like all reasonable systems, UNIX begins labelling serial ports and > other resources with the first counting number, 0. If you have two > serial ports, they are numbered 0 and 1. DOS, developed by illiterates > for illiterates, calls these COM1 and COM2. To be fair, there's a great tradition of counting from 1. Humans did it for centuries, and languages like FORTRAN still do. Of course, this caused untold trouble when fitting device numbers into bit fields, so it makes more sense to start counting at 0. Greg