8-port serial async cards??

[Karl Denninger]

In article <390 at bilver.UUCP> bill at bilver.UUCP (bill vermillion) writes:
>In article <823 at wb3ffv.ampr.org> howardl at wb3ffv.ampr.org ( WB3FFV) writes:
>>In article <1135 at netxcom.UUCP>, rfrye at netxcom.UUCP (Rob Frye) writes:
>>> In article <8417 at dasys1.UUCP> eddjp at dasys1.UUCP (Dewey Paciaffi) writes:
>>>>We are considering upgrading our 386 XENIX box from an ARNET 4 port 9600 baud
>>>>board, to a Bell Technologies ACE 8 port 38,400 baud board.
>>> 
>>> I, too am interested in that card.  Please post responses; I think others
>>> may wish to know.  Also, if anyone is using any other 8-port serial board
>>> on SCO Xenix 386 that you like (particularly that will handle 38.4kbps)
>>> please clue us in! :->
> 
>You might want to look at the Anvil Stallion.  Board is 8 or 16 in an AT
>configuration or up to 12 in an AT system.
>
>It does most of the kernel functions on the board and is fast.  The ONLY
>drawback I have with it is that sometimes a user would get a print process
>started and under the old system I could kill the process.  Under the Anvil
>the process is dumped to the board and within about 2 seconds the system
>thinks the job is done with - and then I can't kill it.
>
>I haven't timed it - but Anvil says throughput to the board is in excess of
>160kbs - it can sustain 9600 to 16 ports at a time.  It also goes up to 38k.
>The only thing it doesn't have - and is due out shortly - is a driver for
>transparent print like the Computone board.  If you are not familiar with the
>Computone variant the keyboard does not lock up while you are printing to an
>attached terminal.

ARGH!

The Anvil board may be fine for 16 terminals, but I wouldn't think of using
it with even TWO 19200 baud modems.

Why?  Because they haven't done the work required to get the board to handle
input at that speed.

Yes, this is only about 20kbs -- TERRIBLE performance on input.

Admittedly, output is much better -- as long as there's no input going on!
I don't know if I buy 160kbs though....

When our Telebit comes online, my "19200" baud serial terminals' display
rate goes down to under 9600 bps -- because the board is overloaded and
giving priority to the input (thank god they did get this right).

We've been in contact with Anvil both here in the States and Australia (the
place of manufacture) and they were _unaware_ of this being a problem.  In
fact, their people told us that their boards "aren't normally used in that
manner" (!)

Anvil advised us that they would be looking into the problem and attempt to
fix it, but that they weren't confident of being able to do so (this I don't
understand -- we're talking RAW input -- which should be more efficient than
"cooked" output, no -- besides there's an 8MHZ 80186 on that board!).  This
conversation took place about 6 weeks ago -- and we have not heard anything
from Anvil yet regarding a possible fix.

One more thing -- their latest drivers don't work right (with the
transparent print and all).  If you must use this card, get the older
drivers (2.1.7); the "new improved drivers" not only lost characters on
input, but had port and system lockup problems as well!  

The older drivers don't work with VP/ix or attached printers.... so if you 
need that, you're out of luck.  They also occasionally "forget" to output
the last character in the output buffers for anywhere from 5-10 seconds
after streaming output stops..... 

If you're intending to do high speed modem work, choose something else.

--
Karl Denninger (karl at ddsw1.MCS.COM, ddsw1!karl)
Data: [+1 312 566-8912], Voice: [+1 312 566-8910]
Macro Computer Solutions, Inc.    	"Quality solutions at a fair price"