Serial ports

[Paul Campbell]

In article <362 at lakart.UUCP> fgz at lakart.UUCP (Fred Genoese-Zerbi) writes:
>I am working on a system that would need several (more than two) serial
>ports, and would like to base it on the macintosh.  I seem to remember
>some time ago hearing about a company that was selling Mac II serial
>port cards.  Are these out on the market?  Does anybody know the name
>of the company that makes them, or other companies that make similar
>cards?  Are there any cards like that for the SE?  What is the general
>price of these cards if they do exist, and is it difficult to
>drive the ports in software?

SuperMac has a 4 port Serial card for the Mac II called 'CommCard'.
It has drivers that have the same interface as the Mac's built in
serial ports, you just open them with names other than ".Ain" etc.
Everyone who has used one who already has application code for
their serial ports has found the port to be close to trivial.

The board has a processor built in to it and has 6k buffering on
output, on input it has about 100 bytes, it knows about protocols
like Xmodem/Kermit so it can be made to reduce its input interrupt
rate way down.

It has been shipping for A/UX for about 6 months (the A/UX version
also acts as a serial board where it knows about the uucp G
protocol, or as a LocalTalk board so you can print etc). The MacOS
version (just software changes) is just coming out of Beta (no reported
bugs for 2 months), people who want one now can however get hold of them
(a number have already).

If you want to obtain one contact Scott at SuperMac at (415)962-2491.

WARNING: I designed the board so obviously I'm biased, however
	 technical questions may be sent to me at ..!taniwha!paul


	Paul

-- 
Paul Campbell			..!{unisoft|mtxinu}!taniwha!paul (415)420-8179
Taniwha Systems Design, Oakland CA

 	"Read my lips .... no GNU taxes"