🚀 go-pugleaf

We are in need of a supplier for a particular type of serial port
buffer which we can't seem to find anywhere.  We used to use the
"Microbuffer In-Line" which was manufactured by Practical Peripherals,
but they no longer make the unit.

What we need is a plain RS-232 serial buffer, one port in and one port
out, with 512K to 1Meg of memory, or more.  It should be able to be
configured for a variety of standard baud rates and protocols.
Battery backup power would be nice, but not necessary.

It should also (and this is what we can't find) be able to operate on
an "ACK/NAK" hand-shaking basis, as the Practical Peripherals unit
did.  By that, I mean, the buffer sends only one line of data at a
time.  It stops sending data to the receiving unit (and buffers any
incoming data) whenever it encounters (in its output stream)  a
carriage return character, a line feed character, a form feed
character, an ETX character, or if 128 bytes of data have been sent.
The buffer then sends an ETX (03H) character to the receiving unit and
waits for an ACK (06H) before it sends the next line of data (starting
the cycle again).

So, basically, the buffer sends one line of data, terminated by an
end-of-line character, and then waits for an ACK character before it
sends the next line.  The actual character codes it uses to signify
the end of transmission and acknowledgement are not important, and we
could adapt to a different method, if necessary.

If anyone knows of any such device that is currently being
manufactured, we would appreciate any information on how to obtain it.

Please e-mail replies to: mkelton@cad-routemaster.com