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From: lts@hpcndpc.CND.HP.COM (Lou Schulte)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: 16550
Message-ID: <31550001@hpcndpc.CND.HP.COM>
Date: 7 Jun 91 16:19:52 GMT
References: <5080@orbit.cts.com>
Organization: HP Colorado Networks Division
Lines: 11

> Why are these UARTs [16550] so popular it seems, that I see them mentioned all
> ofer the place for people looking for them for their pc's?
> I'm going to be hacking up a couple serial ports into my machine, and was
> wondering what they offer over the 8250 that is standard?

The 8250 buffers just a single byte whereas the 16550 has a multibyte FIFO. So
if you have interrupt lockouts exceeding the one-byte transmission time (about
1 msec at 9600 baud) you'll lose bytes with the 8250 but not with the 16550.
Also, as I understand it, the 16550 is a direct replacement for the 8250.

Lou Schulte