"Smart" serial boards for the 80386

[Jack F. Vogel]

In article <510 at cimcor.UUCP> mike at cimcor.UUCP (Michael Grenier) writes:
>From article <628 at wb3ffv.UUCP>, by howardl at wb3ffv.UUCP (Howard Leadmon ):
>> 
[...misc. flames omitted...]
>
>For whatever its worth, I've used the Bell board in both Microport 286
>and 386 UNIX as well as the Digiboard. I had the same problems with the
>modem as you did but there was a fix posted to the net awhile back for
>this problem. It seems that the wiring diagrams in their manual are screwed 
>up and the suggested wiring for the modem was wrong. (Not to mention that
>they use the wrong sex RS-232 connectors off their cables considering
            ??^^^^^^^^^??  
>the Bell board works as a DCE). Some of the modem lines are wired wrong. 
                                             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I have been watching the Bell ICC reports with much interest since we are
using one on turnkey. I think that much of the flames are deserved and I will
add a couple of my own, but this talk of not working with a modem is not
true. I had 2 Multitechs running on the card and they worked fine ( that is
as well as the card worked overall ). This talk of the wrong sex connector
makes no sense. You must realize that Bell sells a number of different
RJ45-DB25 style adapters. When we took delivery on the card it had only
one such adapter, and it was for terminals, which means it is effectively
a NULL MODEM. Now if someone tried to use this with a modem it certainly
would not work!!! It was not the wrong "sex" however, it was male. What we
did was make our own modem adapters so that the signals would be "straight
through", and it worked fine as I said. The previous posters might give
the mistaken impression that the ICC does not support the necessary signals
to control a modem (such as at least some cards from, say, Arnet). This is
false, it supports the standard 8 lines and provides for real hardware
flow control. One must just make sure that the proper adapter is installed.

Now on to the flames...the card has been causing us considerable grief. It
has been run in two different systems. In the first it would cause huge
memory fault core dumps under considerable system load. In the present
system it doesn't core dump, instead it causes general protection panics
and brings the system down altogether, wonderful :-} :-{. At this point
we have it out of the system. Now a bit of good news comes from Paul
Vixie who says there is a new release that has solved the problems. I have
corresponded with him and he says it has shipped since 2/88. Now the
question is will Bell make good and allow those of us who bought the
earlier lemon exchange for a product that works?? Are you listening
Bell?????
 
>Personally, I'd buy something other than a Bell Technologies board.

At this point I would agree with this conclusion, unless Bell can prove
themselves with their new release. And I might add, they should do so in
a hurry if they are to stem the proverbial tide of this bad press.


-- 
Jack F. Vogel
Turnkey Computer Consultants, Costa Mesa, CA
UUCP: ...{nosc|uunet}!turnkey!jack 
Internet: jack at turnkey.TCC.COM