BellTech ACE 8-port intelligent serial controller

[Lucio de Re]

In article <549 at proxima.UUCP>, lucio at proxima.UUCP (Lucio de Re) writes:
> We have installed a number of the BellTech (now an Intel company)
> ACE 8-port intelligent serial controllers in MITAC 386 computers
> running SCO Xenix 386 System V Release 2.3.2.
> 
The tty lines whose behaviour had me so baffled have stopped
behaving inconsistently since I removed them from the HDB Devices
file. Referring to the getty(M) manual pages, I found that getty
checks for locks on tty lines IFF they have corresponding entries in
this file. The impression conveyed is that the locks are to stop
getty grabbing the device, what is left unsaid is that getty also
locks the device, but I can only surmise that the lock expires after
a minute (the device is LOCKED for cu usage immediately and for a
short time after being enabled).

This does not matter on normal COM ports, but for some mysterious
reason it causes getty to terminate (normally) on the ACE ports. I
would dearly like to know how this lock expiry, which seems very
poorly documented, interacts with the ACE card to cause the
behaviour I have experienced. In the meantime I eliminated the
problem by disabling dialout on the guilty ports. Under the few
circumstances where it is necessary to have two-way operation,
I will use the ttyO* devices as recommended by BellTech.

Thanks to eric at snark.uu.net (Eric S. Raymond) and
		  huver at amgraf      (?Huver)

for their assistance.

> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> I used to design nuclear reactors and you should see the code that
> engineers and scientists come up with. Yuuuck! Spaghetti everywhere.
> -------------------------------------------------- (Kenneth L Moore) -
> Lucio de Re                        ...uunet!ddsw1!olsa99!proxima!lucio
> -------------------------------------------------------- lucio at proxima