Comtrol - a very good smart asy card

[John G. DeArmond]

I want to do something different for a change.  I want to post some GOOD 
news.  I have found a very good smart async card backed by excellent
customer support.

The card is the Comtrol Ultra made by (you guessed it) Comtrol, inc.
This card contains an 80286 running at about 9 mhz, up to 1 meg of
RAM (128k shared) and up to 16 ports.  The UARTS are Zilog SCCs which
means that sync protocols could be supported.  The 8 port card is about
$900 dollars.  The card comes with your choice of 9 or 25 pin connectors
in an outboard pod.  The card comes with an Interactive format installpkg
disk and a self-booting diagnostic disk.

The installation is the worst part.  The installpkg disk failed to 
install.  After cpio'ing the diskette off to the hard disk and mucking
around a bit, I got it to work.  Hint:  Build the kernal using kconfig
instead of the installpkg option.

Once the installation is complete, the board comes right up and runs.
A script that runs at boot time from /etc/idrc loads the board's pump
code and kicks it off.  The board is fast enough to keep several Telebits
full and best of all.....

IT HAS REAL HONEST-TO-GOD HARDWARE FLOW CONTROL.

Take RTS low and the output data stops!!  What's so hard about that?

If you don't want or need flow control, there is a supplied utility
that turns it on or off on a port by port basis.

But it gets better.  I ordered 2 boards.  One board was DOA.  It would
pass diagnostics but would keep the system from booting under Unix.
I called tech support about 3:00 PM that afternoon and described the 
problem.  They volunteered to FEDEX a new board to me overnight and 
asked me to return the old one as was convenient.  The guy also suggested
that I keep the manual and disks as they might be useful as archive 
copies!  The board was here the next morning and worked perfectly.
And as I referred to in another posting, these people were of great 
help in resolving a problem between this board and a sync board running
SNA.

They support small VARS and have generous discounts.  I highly recommend
the company and the product.

John


-- 
John De Armond, WD4OQC  | We can no more blame our loss of freedom on congress
Radiation Systems, Inc. | than we can prostitution on pimps.  Both simply
Atlanta, Ga             | provide broker services for their customers.
{emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd|  - Dr. W Williams |                **I am the NRA**