BellTech ACE 8-port intelligent serial controller

[Lucio de Re]

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.

A number of teething problems were resolved by the RTFM technique (I
actually would never have thought that one could find small print in
technical manuals, but the information we eventually found was
equally well disguised!). For those who may come unstuck, our MITACs
normally maps 0xF00000+ into its useable memory space, seemingly
using it as CACHE space. A jumper makes it possible to reserve this
area for memory mapped I/O devices. Initially disabling CACHEing
made the ACE visible to the system; later we found out about the
jumper and successfully re-introduced CACHEing (don't ask me where
it is mapped to now, I actually would prefer not to know!).

I have seen mention here of other individuals having problems with
this device, but the information supplied was too scanty for me to
determine whether their problems were similar to ours:

(a) on enabled direct connect lines, getty receives (and echoes) a
    carriage return and line feed every minute (I actually timed it,
    and this seems an accurate value), getty then seems to die, gets
    respawned by init; with 6 such ports the PIDs climb up to
    somewhat ridiculous values very quickly.

(b) occasionally (not too rarely) the ACE device driver reports
    multiple error conditions (there is no documentation as to the
    meaning of these error messages). I include a few of these error
    messages below; sorry about the waste of bandwidth, but
    completeness may be important. The configuration that was
    responsible for these errors includes two modem lines at ttyA0
    and ttyA1 respectively, direct lines at ttya2 through ttya7. The
    second last batch of errors seems to have coincided with the
    termination of the last newsfeed.

(c) This problem seems to occur only on the first card (up to four
    may coexist (and share a single interrupt vector! it's a smart
    controller). We have one installation with two such cards and
    the second one "seems" not to suffer from the getty problem,
    unfortunately it is not used extensively.

(d) I find it a little ominous that the device driver software is
    labelled release 0.8, but no later release seems available yet.

Now some accumulated bumf. If anybody can help, we'll greatly
appreciate it.

FROM /usr/adm/messages

Thu Nov 23 0:39:03
... SysV release 2.3.2 kid 5.52 for i80386 Serial Number: ltd027793

device    address	vector	dma	comment
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACE (SysV) v0.8 (c) 1988 Bell Technologies
  card 0 installed
Thu Nov 23 0:39:06
ACE II: card 0: Async Driver, v0.8

Thu Nov 23 1:14:22
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 10 err 0

Thu Nov 23 1:14:22
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 0 err 0

Thu Nov 23 21:13:46
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 10 err 0

Thu Nov 23 21:13:46
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 20
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 0 err 20
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 20
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 20
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 20
Thu Nov 23 21:13:46
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 0 err 0

Fri Nov 24 20:08:05
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 10 err 0

Fri Nov 24 20:08:05
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 0 err 0

Fri Nov 24 21:19:10
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 10 err 0

Fri Nov 24 21:19:11
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 4f err 0
ACE II: card 0: rcv before open: port 0 char 0 err 0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM /usr/spool/uucp/.Log/uucico/olsa99

uucp olsa99  (11/24-20:02:26,13157,0) SUCCEEDED (call to olsa99 )
uucp olsa99  (11/24-20:02:31,13157,0) OK (startup)
... (transfer omitted)
uucp olsa99  (11/24-20:08:05,13157,6) OK (conversation complete ttyA0 387)

uucp olsa99  (11/24-21:09:44,13552,0) SUCCEEDED (call to olsa99 )
uucp olsa99  (11/24-21:09:47,13552,0) OK (startup)
... (transfer omitted)
uucp olsa99  (11/24-21:19:10,13552,12) OK (conversation complete ttyA0 610)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Any ideas or suggestions? I will be experimenting further, but other
pressures make it impossible for me to spend too much time on this
problem (it is not YET high pressure!); I will of course provide any
additional information on request.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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!flagship!lucio
-------------------------------------------------------- lucio at proxima