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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!husc6!linus!spdcc!dyer
From: dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: Intellegent multi-port serial line card for Xenix...
Message-ID: <13@spdcc.COM>
Date: Mon, 13-Apr-87 03:50:50 EST
Article-I.D.: spdcc.13
Posted: Mon Apr 13 03:50:50 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 18-Apr-87 17:45:47 EST
References: <1459@cadovax.UUCP> <5956@dartvax.UUCP> <2367@ncoast.UUCP>
Organization: S.P. Dyer Computer Consulting, Cambridge MA
Lines: 33

How timely.  I just brought up a Computone AT-X4P 4-line intelligent
serial board on my AT clone running SCO Xenix.  Installation is fairly
straightforward, although I had to unscrew the mounting bracket on the card;
I believe my case might be a little out of spec.  The software installs
itself--insert the distribution floppy and run /etc/install as root,
leaving the customer just to do a little editing of the card's configuration
file.  The AT-X card is an 8-line card with full RS232 support.  The AT-X4P
has 4 lines only, with 4 RJ45 jacks, i.e., 8 connector modular jacks.  You
can purchase RS232 connectors with RJ45 modular outlets and 8-wire modular
phone cord at most electronics stores.

The only problems with this board are in the documentation, which is a
bit terse, although it tries to be explicit, and with its handling of
parity disparities.  It's a lot more persnickety about strictly interpreting
EVEN and ODD parity (and messing up when the caller doesn't match) than,
say, your dumb ports.  This may be an attribute of the "intelligence" on
the board combined with their device driver.  The fact that SCO makes it
impossible to specify "no parity" for getty's initial terminal modes without
also laboriously mentioning every Sys V terminal mode known in the SCO
/etc/gettydefs file only exacerbates this.  Nevertheless, with a little
experimentation, I've managed to get a 9600 baud leased line and two dialins
working, and I'm pretty happy with it.

There was some talk a few months ago about UUCP not working with the
Computone boards.  This was undoubtably a problem with parity mismatches.
I've been running very happily with UUCP at 9600 baud over a leased
line (going to try for 19.2 next week) and at 1200 and 2400 baud on
my dialin.
-- 
---
Steve Dyer
dyer@harvard.harvard.edu
dyer@spdcc.COM aka {ihnp4,harvard,linus,ima,bbn,halleys}!spdccAAAfb.