Lantronix Products - Terminalservers.com

Terminal Server Solutions

A terminal server is a hardware device that provides Terminals, PCs, printers, and other RS232 devices with a common connection point to a Local Area Ethernet or Wide Area network. The terminals connect to the terminal server from their RS232 or RS-423 serial port. The other side of the terminal server (the Ethernet side) connects to a PC server through a network interface card (NIC) or directly to a LAN. Remote Terminals can access a terminal server through modems. A Terminal Server is commonly a hardware standalone device but it could also be software on a PC. (Different makes of terminal servers offer different kinds of interconnection. Some can be ordered in different port and protocol configurations based on customer need.)
The use of a terminal server means that each terminal doesn't need its own network interface card to access the LAN. The connection resources inside the terminal server are usually shared dynamically by all attached terminals. Some terminal servers can be shared by up to 128 terminals. The terminals can be PCs, terminals that emulate 3270s, printers, or other devices with the RS-232/423 interface. In some terminal servers, the terminals can use TCP/IP for a Telnet connection to a host, LAT to a Digital Equipment Corporation host, or TN3270 for a Telnet connection to an IBM host with 3270 applications. With some terminal servers, a given terminal user can have multiple host connections to different kinds of host operating systems (UNIX, IBM, DEC).