Mac SE serial port vanished ?

[mfny]

 Hi all,

Having an issue with my SE whereby I cant seem to see the Serial port listed any place at all, nor does it work when plugged into another Mac for file sharing. However the Printer port shows and works fine.

Anyone have any ideas what could be going on ?

 

[mfny]

Seems like maybe a false alarm as im reading that pre Open Transport the modem port does not show in the control panel at all ? also the port does show up in Zterm but i have no way to test beyond that.

 

[Cory5412]

That's correct, prior to OpenTransport, the printer port was used for LocalTalk networking, probably because networking multiple Macs to a single LaserWriter was one of the more common uses of early LocalTalk networking.

 

[Gorgonops]

Off the top of my head I vaguely recall something about the handshaking setup differing slightly between the two ports (IE, the Modem port has a fuller implementation that's not needed for Appletalk anyway) being another reason the printer port was favored for Appletalk.

 

[68krazy]

Interesting thread, this explains a lot. I have had trouble getting the modem port to work for AppleTalk on my SE/30, now I know why!