Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!wuarchive!uunet!ogicse!milton!roger
From: roger@wrq.com (Roger Fulton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Serial mouse + two other serial devices?
Keywords: mouse com port
Message-ID: <13840@milton.u.washington.edu>
Date: 6 Jan 91 21:10:50 GMT
References: <19812@yunexus.YorkU.CA>
Sender: news@milton.u.washington.edu
Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA
Lines: 29

In article <19812@yunexus.YorkU.CA> rreiner@yunexus.YorkU.CA (Richard Reiner) writes:
>Does anyone know of a way to use three serial ports at once on a
>386-class machine?  I'd like to have a serial mouse, a modem, and a
>zero-slot LAN all at once, but as far as I know it's not possible,
>because com1 and com3, and com2 and com4, share IRQ lines.
>
>Any suggestions, short of buying a multi-port smart serial card for
>$500, will be greatly appreciated.
>
>--richard

Sure.  There are lots of serial cards available that can do com3 and com4
with irq's other than 4 (which com1 uses) and 3 (which com2 uses), and they
cost MUCH less than $500.  The trick is to get software that's not so brain-
dead that you can't configure it to use the IRQ of your choice.

Note that common options for com3 and com4 are irq5 and irq2.










Roger Fulton
roger@wrq.com