Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!manes
From: manes@dasys1.UUCP (Steve Manes)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: "Smart" serial boards for the 80386
Message-ID: <4935@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 12 Jun 88 06:49:09 GMT
Organization: The Big Electric Cat, NYC, NY
Lines: 30

I don't know if this is the right newsgroup for this posting but the
readership seems to be right.

I've had a lousy time trying to find a smart serial board for my 386.
This is a System Micro-386 motherboard by Mini Micro (in California) with a
20 Mhz CPU and 10 Mhz AT-style bus using paged interleaved RAM.  The
machine has performed flawlessly since Jan 2 under 24-hour operation.

I'm currently running a Digiboard COM/8 ("dumb") serial board but want to
upgrade to an intelligent controller for the Trailblazer.  The Digiboard
>works< with the T-bit, just not as smoothly as I would like.

The first board tried was ICC's, which is a complete disaster.  If the
modems aren't hung inside of 4 hours, the machine has crashed completely.

The second was the Arnet.  This one appears to work fine... until you try
to run one of a few programs (one of which is Magpie, which I wrote, so I
know there's nothing tricky going on).  Xenix dumps with a panic if
'aspserv' (v 5.0) is loaded and then Magpie is run.  The error indicates
possible kernel and/or RAM corruption.  We encountered similar problems
with the Arnet and the 286 if the bus is pushed to 10 Mhz.

I suspect that the bus speed is the problem.  Does anyone know of a GOOD
smart serial board, with hardware flow control, capable of keeping up with
a 10 Mhz bus?
-- 
+-----
+ Steve Manes
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