Hello Technofool Im newbie to 3com networking as well. I'll try my best to address your problem. Here's what i think you may try.
Switch 1 Ports 1-12 untagged access ports , 23- 24 tagged ports in vlan 1 to carry traffic for VLAN 1(192). ports 13- 20 untagged access ports in vlan 2 , ports 21-22 tagged in vlan 2(172) to carry traffic for vlan 2. Since ports 23-24 are tagged ...