Using AST 4port or clone on uPort

[dpgerdes at osiris.cso.uiuc.edu]

/* Written 10:12 am  May 12, 1989 by makela at tukki.jyu.fi in osiris.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.unix.microport */
/* ---------- "Using AST 4port or clone on uPort" ---------- */
I recently got a (supposedly accurate) clone of a AST 4port card.
As the uPort manuals claimed that this "dumb" card was supported
by uPort (using special parameters of ttypatch), I assumed that
installing it would be a breeze :-)  No such luck.

The uPort manual says to use for example
	ttypatch -t6 -i7 -a416 -n4 -v0x1bf -m0
and to take care that the card is in the enhanced (enchanted ?)
mode and that "shared interrupts are disabled (SW 3-3)".
The enhanced mode is easy, the opposite is that the card is COM1,
COM2 and two non-standard ports.  But I'm not sure about the
shared interrupt stuff (disturbingly, the card I have has only one
DIP switch) ?  Also, I (stupidly ?) assume that there is no magic
connected with using tty06, so I specified -t2 in place of -t6, so
as to not have missing tty numbers in-between (the machine has
both COM1 and COM2 on the mother board).

However, I bravely plugged the card in and ttypatched and rebooted.
The classic "cp /etc/passwd /dev/tty02" test did not work.  When
connecting a terminal to the port, I got a response to the FIRST
return key, nothing after that.
I tried several other IRQ lines after that, including IRQ2...IRQ5,
but none worked any better.

>From the ttypatch manual page I understand that the 4port needs to
have it's status port read after every interrupt, this is what the
-v0x1bf means.  Could this mean that the system is not actually
doing that (I checked with ttypatch -t# -d, I did key the command in
correctly) ?

Anyone have ideas ?
Otto J. Makela (with poetic license to kill), University of Jyvaskyla

InterNet: makela at tukki.jyu.fi, BitNet: MAKELA_OTTO_ at FINJYU.BITNET
BBS: +358 41 211 562 (V.22bis/V.22/V.21, 24h/d), Phone: +358 41 613 847
Mail: Kauppakatu 1 B 18, SF-40100 Jyvaskyla, Finland, EUROPE
/* End of text from osiris.cso.uiuc.edu:comp.unix.microport */