multiport serial board info needed

[Bruce M. Himebaugh]

In article <1990Oct14.003841.24000 at virtech.uucp> cpcahil at virtech.UUCP (Conor P. Cahill) writes:
>In article <34823 at cup.portal.com> spyen at cup.portal.com (Shyh Pei Yen) writes:
>>I am going to set up a 386 PC based UNIX with dumb terminals connected. I
>>really appreciate any information on the multiport board. My questions are
>
>>4. Pricing?
>
>For 8 to 12 ports you can expect to pay anywhere from $600 (maxspeed-8)
>to $1,100 (megaport 12). 

BEWARE OF MAXPEED!!!  The company I work for recently bought a 386 to be used
as an Accounting Computer.  We purchased SCO Unix as the operating system.  We
also had purchased an 8 port Maxpeed i/o card to hang terminals off of.  The
original recommendation was that we should buy a Digiboard (i.e. stick with
something almost guaranteed to work), but in an effort to try and save money
the Maxpeed was purchased.  Well, guess what...by now it has cost us at least 5
times as much as if we had just bought a Digicard up front.  After installing
the Maxpeed card we had nothing but problems.  The computer would crash any
where from 1 to 5 times per day.  Myself and our resident "hardware guru" spent
many many hours switching cards in and out and changing the system
configuration and even switching the entire machine, in an effort to find the
offending piece of hardware.  Well, after the process of elimination (logic
seemed to quit working after X number of hours :-)) we found it to be the
Maxpeed card.  We called Maxpeed and they sent us more current drivers, which
reduced the number of crashes per day from 1-5, to 1-2.  But the machine was
still very unreliable!!!  So, we bought an 8 port Digiboard and installed it
and have not had one single problem with the system crashing.

As long as I'm dumping on Maxpeed, I'll mention one more thing...
When we originally received the i/o card from them the documentation was very
unprofessional.  It gave a "fly by night" appearance.  The documentation that
showed the pinouts of the serial connector had been corrected in pen or pencil
and then copied on a copying machine!

Moral #1:  Don't use Maxpeed 8 port i/o cards with SCO Unix.

Moral #2:  Don't always pick the cheapest route, you may find it's not so
           cheap.

Bruce
-- 
Bruce M. Himebaugh                                          Voice: 216-484-3528
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