ranting on serial I/O cards

[Steve Friedl]

Hi folks,

     I am having a very rough time finding a decent I/O card for
my 386, and weeks of research have been really discouraging.  I am
very picky about what I need the card to support, and it seems
that everybody is lacking in this or that area (hell, I have
enough trouble getting people to understand what I want in the
first place).

     This is what I need -- the board must...

*    not lock up all the time.  I had a Bell Tech/Intel ACE card
     in my machine, and it would lock up several times a day.
     This is unacceptable.

*    support hardware flow-control plus full modem control at the
     same time.  Many boards support TD + RD plus a single
     control line in and out, but I need CTS+RTS+DCD+DTR.

*    do full-time hardware flow control.  This means that RTS/CTS
     must be used without me asking it with some kind of stty
     operation (and I don't really care if it is under software
     control at all -- hardwired is OK).

*    support *concurrent* hardware and software flow control.  It
     is beyond me why any vendor would make this mutually
     exclusive, but AT&T did it this way for their 3B2 EPORTS
     card.  I hate them for it.

*    be supported in AT&T UNIX System V Release 3.2.

*    have the bidirectional modem port interlocking ("uugetty in
     the kernel").  When the outbound port is closed, DTR must
     drop for a brief time (so my TrailBlazer will reset) and
     then go high if there is a getty waiting on the inbound port
     (letting the modem answer again).  It looks like Bell Tech
     really got this right.

*    it would be nice if the outbound modem port supported full
     modem control, but this is not a requirement.  I think that
     most of the outbound ports are non-modem-control.

*    have responsive tech support.  I am tired of having to give
     RS-232 lessons to tech support personnel.  Having the
     primary tech support in this country would be a big win (the
     UK is too durn many time zones east of me).

I am not really concerned about VPIX or DOS,  and performance and
cost are not that important either (within reason).  I have
looked at the following:

Bell Tech/Intel ACE - I had the board in my machine for about six
     months and had to get rid of it.  It locked up all the the
     time -- it was maddening --  has only part-time hardware
     (but concurrent with softawre) flow control, supports full
     modem control, has *great* bidirectional port locking, not
     so hot performance on interactive sessions.  Tech support is
     friendly but of limited help.  Intel is getting harder and
     harder to deal with (especially for small-fry like me).

     The latest driver (a week or two old) is on its way to me,
     so I might try this again.  I understand that their current
     two-layer board sometimes has noise problems, so they are
     going to a four-layer board with power planes and such.

Specialix - in my machine now on ten-day evaluation.  *Very* good
     performance, full-time and concurrent hardware flow control
     (!), full modem control (!), but bidirectional port locking
     that doesn't work right at all.  The USA representative for
     tech support has been friendly and responsive, but the UK
     folks who do the real work seem to be slow to respond and
     uninterested in the finer points.  It looks like this board
     is going back, which is too bad because Specialix is who I
     wanted in the first place.

Equinox - I am told that they have extremely high performance
     cards, but there is no fulltime HFC, and they have limited
     modem-control lines.  Oh well.

Digiboard - no fulltime hardware flow control, the ports lock up
     often in a couple of customer machines.

Corollary - fulltime hardware flow control, supposed to be really
     nice performance, but probably doesn't have the
     bidirectional port locking.  I spoke at length with the guy
     who writes the driver, and while he seems interested in
     making things work right, nothing is likely to be forthcoming
     in the short term.

Anyway, this has been very frustrating.  I spend at least two
hours a day on the phone with Specialix tech support, with other
vendors looking for somebody to answer my questions, or trying
something new on a particular card to see if it will work.  This
really shouldn't be that hard.

If anybody has any suggestions, I would love to hear them.
Vendors who think they can do this are very much encouraged to
call.  I really want to find a board I can recommend to my
customers.

     Steve

-- 
Stephen J. Friedl, KA8CMY / Software Consultant / Tustin, CA / 3B2-kind-of-guy
+1 714 544 6561 voice   /   friedl at vsi.com   /   {uunet,attmail}!mtndew!friedl

"Winning the Balridge Quality Award is as easy as falling off a horse." - me