AST or other dumb serial card for Xenix?

[Jonathan Bayer]

In article <12693 at steinmetz.ge.com>, davidsen at steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) writes:
> Would someone care to comment on using a dumb serial card with
> Xenix/386? I have a system which is down to 2 dumb ports because of
> hardware failure. I can't afford to buy a smart card at this time, as
> desirable as that might be (I just replaced the tape drive, controller,
> and 1MB memory, and I have a flakey hard disk).
> 
> Projected use would be for four modems, no faster than 2400 baud. The
> other serial port would be used for a single 9600 baud connection. Has
> anyone done this? Since full load is very rare (I guess four uucp or
> zmodem sessions do happen, but rarely), I can accept the idea of 20-40%
> of the CPU being used in interrupt service at times. It's better than no
> service...



That kind of use will work fine with Xenix.  We have several customers who
have between 8 and 12 terminals running on Xenix/386 using Digiboard 8s
cards.  These cards are nothing more that 8 16450s working off the
same interrupt, and it is supported by SCO.  You will not notice a
signifigent slowdown.


Jonathan Bayer
Intelligent Software Products, Inc.