Digiboard

[Karl Denninger]

In article <229 at xinx.UUCP> ade at xinx.UUCP (Adrian Miranda) writes:
>
>     We are having problems here getting reliable connections
>with our Trailblazer.  Our system consists of a Lee Data 635 controller,
>which seems to be basically an AT clone.  It is running Microport System
>V AT version 2.3 (we think).  It has a digiboard Com/8 (which has 8 serial
>ports).  We are trying to make the digiboard work with a Trailblazer at 19200.
>But we get too many alarms with uucp, and so uucp always disconnects after a
>few minutes.  
...
>Is anyone familiar with this problem?  Any assistance will be appreciated.
...
>Thanks in advance.

You'll probably get a full mailbox on this one.

Microport's "dumb" serial drivers (for 16450/8250 chips) are badly broken
and cannot handle what you're trying to do.  In fact, they have problems
with 2400 baud sometimes.  9600 or 19200 is out of their reach.

You basically have three choices:
1) Get a smart serial I/O board -- big $$$ (~1k)
2) Toss Microport and get SCO Xenix (again, big $$$ ~1k)
   Xenix's serial drivers are up to the task as they come out of the box.
3) Write your own serial driver (or find someone who's happy enough with
   theirs to either give/sell you it).  This last choice is made _MUCH_ more
   difficult by some bugs in the kernel driver interface routines (timeout()
   being one that immediately comes to mind).  We have a driver -- that
   works on nearly every other Unix and Xenix varient there is -- but it
   isn't stable enough on Microport to release for sale.

There are kludges in the form of the "igloo patch" and others, but they
don't address the primary problems with the OS.

I've heard the people claim that it "works fine for them" here; you probably
have too.  All I can go on is my experience -- two machines that we went
through here (to remove the possibility that it was a hardware problem), and 
two other sites in the local area -- all with the same troubles.

I won't even go into the "destroy disk data" bug that appears to be alive
and well in the 2.3/2.4 release (if you two disk drives).

--
Karl Denninger (karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM, ddsw1!karl)
Data: [+1 312 566-8912], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910]
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.    	"Quality solutions at a fair price"