"Smart" serial boards for the 80386

[Michael Grenier]

>From article <628 at wb3ffv.UUCP>, by howardl at wb3ffv.UUCP (Howard Leadmon ):
> 
> In article <4935 at dasys1.UUCP>, manes at dasys1.UUCP (Steve Manes) writes:
>> 
>> I've had a lousy time trying to find a smart serial board for my 386.
> 
>> The first board tried was Bell's ICC's, which is a complete disaster.  If the
>> modems aren't hung inside of 4 hours, the machine has crashed completely.
> 
> [Flame On!!]
>  Well let me say that I can tell you some stories about Bell Technoliges, and
> I wouldn't put it all here (it would overload the net!!). The Bell ICC is a 
> peice of JUNK! It dosen't work with System V/AT, it works even worse with
> System V/386 from Microport, and even with there own port of UNIX V 3.0 for
> the 80386 (sold by Bell Tech) it won't handle a modem, so the board is
> useless in my opinion. So I sent a whole pile of ICC's back to Bell and to

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.

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).

Personally, I'd buy something other than a Bell Technologies board.

    -Mike Grenier
    mike at cimcor.mn.org
    {rutgers, amdahl, ihnp4???}!bungia!cimcor!mike