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From: dollas@uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Serial Ports & Clock for PC
Message-ID: <5100135@uiucdcsb>
Date: Mon, 1-Sep-86 18:16:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.5100135
Posted: Mon Sep  1 18:16:00 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Sep-86 21:22:54 EDT
Lines: 26
Nf-ID: #N:uiucdcsb:5100135:000:1466
Nf-From: uiucdcsb.CS.UIUC.EDU!dollas    Sep  1 17:16:00 1986


   As these are my last days at the University of Illinois and I don't know
how soon I will have access to this net, I have a few questions:
   1) Is there any literature about a real-time clock for a PC? I have a
PC's Limited machine (with which I am very happy), with plenty of ports 
(2 serial, 1 parallel, light pen), and so I don't need the fancy I/O cards,
and $60 for d-Clock seems too high. Moreover, I intend to start 'augmenting'
the hardware of my machine and this is a good little project to start.
   2) This is partially related to question (1): Is it possible to add more
serial or parallel ports to a PC than the ones mentioned above? If so, I could 
get an I/O board, if I could use all of the RS-232 ports. From some diagrams 
that I looked it seems that there will be contention for interrupts, and if it 
was connected to other COM ports it could mess the device of these ports,
say, a floppy or hard-disk. On the same topic, if I get a mouse which plugs in
the bus, do I lose the use of a serial port? I suspect the answer is 'yes', 
which means that an RS232 mouse may actually be preferrable. Is there any
software that allows for daisychaining of RS232 ports in a way that they are
all usable?  
   Anwers with e-mail are fine, as it will be forwarded to me. Thanks in
advance.

 -Apostolos Dollas
	For a few more days at:
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