Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ccut!wnoc-tyo-news!astemgw!kuis!aegis!davidg From: davidg%aegis.or.jp@kyoto-u.ac.jp (Dave McLane) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386 Subject: Summary: 4-port cards Message-ID: Date: 21 Apr 91 01:21:40 GMT Organization: Aegis Society Lines: 217 Here is a summary of what I found out regarding 4 port cards. It's a pretty long story but has a happy ending ... at least I'm real happy with the way it turned out! ----- First my requirements may be a bit different than you're used to, so to forestall confusion: 1. I'm in Japan and cannot call 800 numbers except by contracting with a independent company which charges a fortune for small fry like me. 2. Hanging around on the phone negotiating voice menus and leaving messages for callbacks that never occur is an expensive proposition from Japan. 2. Some (about 50% according to my experience) companies won't sell to Japan; either not at all or only via their dealer who typically charges 2X-3X the price. Charging 2X-3X the price is quite reasonable considering what it costs to do business here, but I don't have that kind of money for the kind of system I need so I'm trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat, so to speak. 3. Some companies (about 75% according to my experience) are simply unable to deal with international shipments. One notable exception is Programmer's Connection which knows what they're doing; one notable example could not physically write my address + fax + tel (which is the de facto standard in Japan) as American-style addresses are built into their "state-of-the-art" LAN. FYI, the reason tel/fax is necessary here is because there are no street numbers. What looks like a street number is only the plot registry number and there are 4-5 separate houses who share my number. The only way to find out where I am physically located is to have a map and I keep one ready to fax off to people when they can't find my place. Luckily I live near a major hospital so when people/cab drivers/delivery people can't find my house I ask them to go to the hospital and I walk over and point out where I live. 4. My saving grace is that I've been able to set up a DOS-based JUNET/USENET-linked system which allows me to connect with people. Otherwise I'd be dead because because I don't know anybody else doing what I'm trying to do in Japan (set up a ISC UNIX 2.2 on a Dell 386 to run as multi-line quasi-public access UNI site). ----- Considering all that, the practical aspects of actually getting something that works is a major consideration. As long as it works, and is reasonably priced (taking into consideration the cost of the phone calls and shipping) I'm happy enough. Here's what kind of help/info I got: 1. INTEL 6-port ICC card. This is the card that I couldn't get to work and Tracy Riley at INTEL says that they no longer make/support this board... 2. Computer Hot Line (ads from resellers) and Computer Shopper (PC parts/software) are said to be invaluable. I don't get these mags and the person I know who used to gave up as they are pretty expensive here in Japan so I didn't follow up on this... 3. HUB-6, originally by Bell Tech, then acquired by INTEL. I couldn't get the address/telco/fax of any place that had one for sale... 4. Computer Discount Warehouse. They say they can get the AST-4 board for me for $284. About two weeks delivery. Again, no address... 5. JDR Microdevices in San Jose sell a 4 port card under the "MCT" (Modular Circuit Technology) brand name that is an AST 4 port clone. Make sure you ask for the "multiuser" card - they also have some other dumb 4 port cards that are not AST clones. Again, no address... 6. Advanced Computer Products, 1310 E. Edinger, Santa Ana, CA 92705, 800 FONE ACP/(800 3663227) 714 558 8813 was advertising an AST 4-Port/XN for $99. I called voice and talked to Bezar who said they had the card at that price. Since my address is pretty horrible to say over the phone ("Minami", 'm', 'i', 'n'...) I faxed my order/address/VISA card immediately after the voice call. No reply. No reply to a follow-up fax sent a week later.... 7. DFI MU-440 board (AST-4 clone) for $139. Be sure you specify the DFI MU-440 board, as DFI makes other 4-port boards. The MU-440 (MU=multi-user) is the AST-4 clone; others are for DOS and while the four ports share a single interrupt, they assume that only one port will be active at any time. The board comes with four um82450 uarts. Two are socketed, two are not. Altex Electronics, Inc., 11342 IH-35 North, San Antonio, TX 78233 +1-512-637-3200 (voice), +1-512-344-2985 (fax), (800) 531-5369. You can buy NS16550AFNs from Altex Electronics. At $19.95 each, they are a bit more expensive than some other places. They are also available ($14.95, they say) from: JDR Microdevices, 2233 Branham Lane, San Jose, CA 95124, +1-408-559-1200 (voice), +1-408-559-0250 (fax), (800) 538-5000. I didn't try them as I already had something going (see next). 8. Decision-Computer International Co. Ltd. 4/F No. 31-3, Alley 4, Lane 906, Ming Shen East Road, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. Tel: +886-2-766-5753, Fax: +886-2-766-5702. Contact is Casper Chang. They stock and ship (almost) immediately by speed post the following items: PC COM 2 port card with 16550 chips US$44.00 This card takes two slots, one for the board and one for the second 25 pin female connector. PC COM 4 port card with 16500 chips US$98.00 This card takes one slot and uses a 52 pin -> cable with 4 X 25 pin female connectors. PC COM device driver for AT&T/ISC UNIX US$25.00 Works OK with regular logins, but not VP/ix (see next). Female-Female gender-benders US$ 6.00 Standard 25 pin cables in Japan come with male connectors at both ends, thus I got 6 gender-benders. I am running both the 2 port card and the 4 port card on my Dell system 333D (386 33MHz) with ISC 2.2 and they work well; see next for details. ----- Installing the PC COM cards was fairly straightforward, all things considered. I used XU (comes as part of the X00 FOSSIL driver for DOS) to check the cards, installed the PC COM -> FAS 2.0.8 drivers, and checked the system with u396mon. 1. Installed the 2-port card as COM1/COM2 (IRQ 4/3) and run XU.EXE and verified that the chips were functioning correctly as FIFO buffered devices. 2. Installed the 4-port card as COM1/COM2/COM3/COM4 (IRQ 4/3) and run XU.EXE and verified that the chips were functioning correctly as FIFO buffered devices. 3. The 4-port card can be configured as a) COM1-COM4, b) COM1-COM2 + 2 additional ports, c) 4 additional ports. Installed the 2-port card as COM1/COM2 and the 4-port card as 4 additional ports running on IRQ 9 (IRQ2 on board; don't ask me about it, but it works OK). 4. Installed the PC COM drivers which worked OK except they exhibited the same behavior as the standard ISC asy drivers: if the carrier goes down when in VP/ix, all processes for that login remains online and whoever called in became whoever was on before. (A useful "feature", but I didn't need it :-) 5. The PC COM stuff comes with some source code to test out various things (although no source code for the ISC drivers) and it looked quite similar to the way the FAS 2.0.8 driver worked with the AST 4-port card so, just for fun, I installed FAS as if the PC COM 4-port was the AST 4-port and everything worked well! Note: I've sent the source for FAS 2.0.8 to Casper Chang at Decision and hopefully they will do something useful with it. 6. Ran many tests using u386mon to monitor how much of the CPU time was being used. Sample test: 3 channels all downloading at 19,200 BPS take approximately 6% of the time (7% showing less the 1% used by u386mon). 7. I've also installed GETTY 2.0 which allows me init the modem plus change speed on login to whatever the modem reports (including locking the port if needs be via some working-but-butchered additions of my own). I'm pretty happy with the set up, considering that I only had to shell out a couple of hundred bucks for the hardware plus another hundred dollars or so faxing the U.S./Taiwan. ----- The total package I'm running includes: 1. PC COM 4-port card & PC COM 4-port card from Decision. 2. XU.EXE from X00V124.ZIP (DOS executable). 3. FAS 2.0.8 (UNIX source) 4. GETTY 2.0 (UNIX source). 5. U386MON (UNIX source). I'm not about to try and e-mail this stuff but if anybody wants it I'd be willing to put it on a MS-DOS 2D 5.25" floppies and send snail mail it to you if you would send me a self-addressed envelope and, say, US$5.00 to cover the cost of the disks and postage. Many thanks to all the people who help me on this, especially Dave Goodman and Mike Squires (mikes@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu). --Dave McLane JUNET INTERNET BITNET via UUNET ==== The Aegis Society ============================================= Minami Hirao 1-6, Imazato The content and process of Nagaokakyo-shi, Kyoto-fu, 617 Japan international/cultural Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087 communication. ====================================================================