This way, if you make a new gadget for the serial, it can start at a low rate and step up as necessary.

This is a slightly far-off change though, as it requires the gadget to talk the error-corrected serial protocol that emplode uses. I suspect a line in the ini file on the empeg will appear first.

In cases where we don't have a lot of control over the serial gadget, rate negotiation isn't helpful. So I think it should always be possible to configure a fixed rate for the serial port.

Then again, my uses for the serial port have nothing to do with emplode or the player so rate negotiation is probably moot; I'd just as well stty the port myself to the right speed and tell the player to ignore it. It would still be nice to be able to control the player though... perhaps through a pipe or socket.