AST or other dumb serial card for Xenix?

[William E. Davidsen Jr]

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...

Much appreciation for any info anyone has on actual experience with the
AST or other boards. Of course if someone has a real cheap used smart
board I would listen to you, too, but I really have to go low budget on
this.

Post or mail as you feel appropriate.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu at ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me