🚀 go-pugleaf

In <2pd7kp$oni@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au>, wfan1@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au (William Fang) writes:
>
>I'm in need of another serial port or two, as I'm tired of swapping
>the printer and modem in out all day.  My multifunction I/O card has
>only two serial ports, and one is a 9 pin mouse port.
>
>I plan to a serial card with socketed uarts, and upgrade one to the 16550,
>for use with the modem.
>
>I've heard that there can be some problems running 4 serial ports under
>OS/2, and perhaps with MS-DOS or Windows, with shared interrupts or
>cascaded interrupts?
>
>Could somebody go through the gotchas?
>
>What will I need to buy to suit my needs?
>
>My present setup is:
>	486dx50
>	8mb ram
>	340mb IDE hard-drive
>	 80mb IDE hard-drive
>	3.5" HD floppy-drive
>	Hercules Monochrome card and monochrome video (serious!)
>	parallel printer
>	serial printer 	(db 25)
>	serial modem 	(db 25)
>	serial mouse	(9 pin)
>
>
>- Bill

        I don't have any direct experience with more than one serial port.
Microchannel handles it just fine but ISA is flaky sometimes. I possible
easy way out is to pick up an RS-232 switch. It allows push button
switching between two, or sometimes more, serial devices on one RS-232
port.

Mark

In article <2pd7kp$oni@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au>, wfan1@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au (William Fang) writes:
|> 
|> I'm in need of another serial port or two, as I'm tired of swapping
|> the printer and modem in out all day.  My multifunction I/O card has
|> only two serial ports, and one is a 9 pin mouse port.
|> 
|> I plan to a serial card with socketed uarts, and upgrade one to the 16550,
|> for use with the modem.

  I currently run 6 serial ports under both MS-DOS and OS/2 (initially
2.1, now 2.11).  I supplemented the stock 2 port serial/parallel board
with a 4 port STB 4SIO board.  The 4SIO board allows address selection
to any of 8 port addresses, and conection of any of the ports to any
interrupt, including high interrupts.  I currently operate the four 4SIO
ports on interrupts 9, 10, 12, and 15.

|> I've heard that there can be some problems running 4 serial ports under
|> OS/2, and perhaps with MS-DOS or Windows, with shared interrupts or
|> cascaded interrupts?

  On the ISA bus you should not drive an interrupt line from more than
one card.  This is a limitation in the basic hardware design.  (EISA
and MCA designers fixed this problem.)  However, since the 4SIO ports
are all on one card, and since the card supports shared interrupts, you
can quite successfully configure two, three, or all four to use the
same interrupt.

|> What will I need to buy to suit my needs?

  See above.  The card runs about $110.

|> - Bill

    Bob
-- 
Bob Peterson         Voice: 214 995-6080  Home: peterson@zgnews.lonestar.org
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In article <2pd7kp$oni@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au>, William Fang wrote:
>
> I'm in need of another serial port or two, as I'm tired of swapping
>
> My present setup is:
>    486dx50
>    8mb ram
>    340mb IDE hard-drive
>     80mb IDE hard-drive
>    3.5" HD floppy-drive
>    Hercules Monochrome card and monochrome video (serious!)
>    parallel printer
>    serial printer      (db 25)
>    serial modem   (db 25)
>    serial mouse   (9 pin)
>
>
Bill,

This might sound really obvious, but..

Have you thought of getting a bus-Mouse? that wouldn't get you any
more serial ports, but it would free one up(?)

Jamie (jhoglund@cscns.com@CSCNS.COM) wrote:

[...]

: Bill,

: This might sound really obvious, but..

: Have you thought of getting a bus-Mouse? that wouldn't get you any
: more serial ports, but it would free one up(?)

I thought about not using a mouse at all.  Bus-mice aren't very cheap
in Australia and I don't really want to buy a serial card plus new
bus mouse.  Even if I did get a bus-mouse, I'd have to get another
cable or adaptor to get a db25 cable to work with a 9pin socket.

I have to get a 16550 uart on a serial port for the modem, as background
transfers don't work too well with the standard 8450 on the multifunction
card.


- Bill

In article <2pu1a8$jei@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au> wfan1@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au (William Fang) writes:
>Jamie (jhoglund@cscns.com@CSCNS.COM) wrote:

>: Have you thought of getting a bus-Mouse? that wouldn't get you any
>: more serial ports, but it would free one up(?)

I too had thought this sounded wonderful.  Unfortunatly this is a case of
"there's no free lunch".  The only interrupts the mouse had were 2,3,4 and 5.
Since my system already was using 2 and 5 ... :-(  The result is I still only 
have one serial port available.
--------
	Chuck....