"Smart" serial boards for the 80386

[Howard Leadmon]

In article <510 at cimcor.UUCP>, mike at cimcor.UUCP (Michael Grenier) writes:
> 
> For whatever its worth, I've used the Bell board in both Microport 286
> and 386 UNIX as well as the Digiboard. I had the same problems with the
> modem as you did but there was a fix posted to the net awhile back for
> this problem. It seems that the wiring diagrams in their manual are screwed 
> up and the suggested wiring for the modem was wrong. (Not to mention that
> they use the wrong sex RS-232 connectors off their cables considering
> the Bell board works as a DCE). Some of the modem lines are wired wrong. 
> Unfortunately, I didn't keep that article so I don;t remember what the
> correct wiring should be...check the other areas of the manual dor the
> 8 pin layout coming off the board and wire it up using common sense.

 Well I am very aware of the boards being wired for terminals, infact what I
did was to buy some RJ-45 --> DB-25 adapter kits and put them togeather for
the modems. Actually with a 1200 or 2400 baud modem they would work most of
the time, but with a Telebit Trailblazer Plus it was just a wasted effort,
and you could depend on having to reset the ICC card after every incomming
high speed connection. 

> One thing I liked about the Bell board was its use under 386 DosMerge.
> It handled terminals very nicely especially once you do a 
> 'on unix "stty ixon /dev/tty01"' or whatever from the DOS prompt which
> sets handling of XON/XOFF for terminals like mine which need it (it gets
> reset by DosMerge).

 When you say it worked under DOS/Merge, do you maen that it worked with
standard ASCII terminals, or do you maen it supports a DOS oriented terminal
that generates scan codes ?? If you mean with an ASCII terminal, YES I believe
it would work, and you need to setup IXON in your gettydefs. I personally 
haven't used the DOS/Merge product, as I really want to avoid getting attached
to the Messy DOS software, and then get stuck with it's limitations..

> Personally, I'd buy something other than a Bell Technologies board.
> 
>     -Mike Grenier
>     mike at cimcor.mn.org
>     {rutgers, amdahl, ihnp4???}!bungia!cimcor!mike

 I really hate to say bad things about anybody's product, but I had several
sets of there boards here for many many months, and still to date they 
haven't fixed the problems. Now I just don't see why they sell a product
for UNIX, claim that it works perfect, when in reality everybody I know that
has run one has problems. When I called Microport and ask them which vendors
smart cards they recomended, and explained that I had a Bell ICC, they said
"Oh, you have an ICC from Bell Technoliges, We don't recomend you use that
board with our OS", so I suppose I should have called them before buying.
I use to have only the higest reguards for Bell Technoliges, as there tape
backups are of good quality, and I really hope they realize that they are
killing there reputation by selling a faulty product to the masses. I really
hope that they will get there act in gear (and I know they are listing, so
let's hear from you Bell!!)...


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