Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!dogie!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!helios.ee.lbl.gov!lll-tis!lll-winken!abhg!carpet!bill From: bill@carpet.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems Subject: Re: "Smart" serial boards for the 80386 Message-ID: <96@carpet.WLK.COM> Date: 14 Jun 88 04:28:20 GMT References: <4935@dasys1.UUCP> <51403@ti-csl.CSNET> Reply-To: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) Followup-To: comp.dcom.modems Distribution: na Organization: W.L. Kennedy Jr. and Associates Lines: 53 In article <51403@ti-csl.CSNET> peterson@mips.UUCP (Bob Peterson) writes: > > The April 4, 1988 (V. 10, No. 14) issue of InfoWorld reviewed multiport [ review results ... ] >Computone Intelliport AT-8 8 (800) 241-3946 80186 None ^^^^^ Should be 80188 > The Computone board has no rating due to problems running the tests >in the Compaq. I think that Info World should have made it more clear that this is not the only board with Compaq compatibility problems. The reviewers went out of their way to try to find something nice to say and ended up complimenting Computone for the vinyl cover on the connector box so it would not mar furniture. That might have better been left unsaid unless they were trying to damn with faint praise. I have two of these boards, an AT-8 and an AT-4. Both work under Microport V/386 (therefore similar ISC rooted implementations), but they work best on SCO Xenix on a generic AT-386 clone (Micronics motherboard in my case). With Microport the board can not take a steady 2400bps stream but the same binary, different /dev/tty works fine with COM1. With Xenix it can handle anything. Neither board will work reliably with Microport Merge/386 but since they work well, other than as noted, that's probably not Computone's fault. There's _gobs_ of stuff that works OK with V/386 but not Merge/386. There are no drivers for AT&T 386 UNIX because Computone has not figured out how to make a kernel. AT&T opted for a different (I think better) approach than the ISC derivatives and Computone is trying to divine the technique. They would not accept any assistance when I approached them, maybe I should have tried to charge :-) Thus far the only multi-port serial card for AT&T 386 UNIX is an unannounced card from CTC Systems in Mountain View, CA. I don't know anything about it. I don't particularly like the Computone cards but they work absolutely OK in my Xenix system. No muss no fuss. My complaints with them are more with their attitude ("you're crazy, we're faster than COM1" and "just who do you think you are!?! claiming to know more than us") rather than their equipment. With the deep discounting available the AT-8 is _very_ nicely priced, documentation is average or slightly below, installation is effortless and operation is predictable and reliable (with Xenix, *not* Microport). The Info World article, while strictly accurate, was unecessarily unflattering. Computone should have been somewhere around a 6.0 had the review not insisted on strict Compaq 20MHz compatibility. I suspect the Info World team talked to some of the same Computone folks I did and got the same impression of the product that I have of the people. The AT-8 will do, particularly if you don't have a Compaq 20MHz machine and especially if you need 8 spigots but can only afford 4 or 6. None of my remarks should be construed as unflattering to Bob Peterson's article. Draw your own conclusions about Computone. -- Bill Kennedy Internet: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM Usenet: { killer | att-cb | ihnp4!tness7 }!ssbn!bill