One Way Communication Only

Hello all-

I have conserver running on a SUSE box, ttyS0 and S1.  I can telnet to the ports and call the serial ports, everything is great.

The problem is, I can only send out going serial traffic (ie, from the conserver/telnet session to ttyS0 to a PC running hyperterm as a test.

Traffic back to the Conserver box is not relayed out via telnet.  I've tried multiple cables on multiple ports on multiple machines.  Even fired up some protocol analyzers to watch whats happening.

The traffic is good and sent, both ways, so it looks like it's on the conserver side.

The conserver ports brings cts/dsr/cd high, the other macine brings rts/dtr up, so everything serial was in ready to go.  I have have played with multiple configs enabling and disabling hardware/software controls, etc.  Nothing changes.

This is driving me nutty, basically because I know it's likely that I'm missing a very basic bit of information.

Probably related, but I'm not sure how:
Conserver refulses all connection involked via console.
Conserver is not asking for authentication (just login root and call, no password prompt)

Suse 9.1 Pro (2.6.4)  A tad old, but was handy.
Tured off every form of firewalls, etc. protection I can think of.
ports are configed super simply at 9600 8N1.

passwd is simple username:*passwd*

.cf is uber basic (and reflects tinkering with xon/off/cts/rts, tried many variations):

efault * {
        logfile /var/consoles/&.log;
        timestamp 1hab;
        rw *;
        master localhost;
        baud 9600;
        parity none;
        options !ixon, !ixoff, crtscts;
        host unused;
}

console s1 { type device; device /dev/ttyS0; }
console s2 { type device; device /dev/ttyS1; }

access * {
        trusted 127.0.0.1;
        allowed 0.0.0.0/0;
}

Thanks in advance.  Been crusing googe/archives for days looking for an answer as I hate to ask something that a simple fix for the informed.  I'm at that point where I need to walk away from it and come back.  :P