dave@suna.CMI.COM (David Halonen) (03/17/89)
I'm looking for a manufacturer of additional serial ports for the MacII. Any leads out there? Thanks, David Halonen, Center for Machine Intelligence, Electronic Data Systems Ann Arbor, MI (313) 995-0900 AppleLink: N0548 Internet: dave@suna.cmi.com -- David Halonen, Center for Machine Intelligence, Electronic Data Systems Ann Arbor, MI (313) 995-0900 AppleLink: N0548 Internet: dave@suna.cmi.com
alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) (03/25/89)
In article <213@suna.CMI.COM> dave@suna.cmi.com.UUCP (David Halonen) writes: >I'm looking for a manufacturer of additional serial ports for the >MacII. Any leads out there? > I waited for Paul to answer this, but he hasn't so... Paul Cambell built a four-port serial board for the Mac. It is currently available for A/UX and will be available for the Mac OS shortly (but I seem to recall that you can buy the A/UX version and then get the Beta Mac OS drivers on demand). While I don't own one yet (I will soon), I have talked to a lot of people about them, and I have used one on an A/UX machine. The consensus is that this is a really excellent piece of work all around. The board works as either four serial ports or one AppleTalk port. It is buffered so it removes much of the load from the CPU when it runs as an AppleTalk port. It also understands various communications protocals (such as uucp 'g') so it makes serial communication a lot nicer (Telebits running UUCP at full speed under A/UX have a virtually imperceptible impact on performance). There's more, but I don't remember all of it. The board lists for $600. It is currently sold by SuperMac, but that may change in the near future. There are also a number of other manufacturers who make serial cards: CSI- They make the "Hurdler" NuBus prototyping card and MacForth. I don't know anything about their serial card, except that as of two months ago it would not run with A/UX. The four-port card is cheap ( <$300, I think). AST- They make the "ICP" two- or four-port card. This is a more powerful card than Paul's CommCard, in some ways (68000 @10MHz, I think) but the performance is much poorer. Also, the card is more expensive (about $1000). I don't believe it supports A/UX. (I'm very uncertain about this, but I seem to recall that this card is based on Apple's Coprocessor Card.) Dove- They make a variety of interface boards with varying quantities and types of interfaces (422, 423, 232, parallel, others). I don't know anything about these boards. Alexis Rosen alexis@ccnysci.{uucp,bitnet}
phssra@mathcs.emory.edu (Scott R. Anderson) (03/28/89)
In article <1448@ccnysci.UUCP> alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) writes: >In article <213@suna.CMI.COM> dave@suna.cmi.com.UUCP (David Halonen) writes: >>I'm looking for a manufacturer of additional serial ports for the >>MacII. Any leads out there? > >There are also a number of other manufacturers who make serial cards: >CSI- They make the "Hurdler" NuBus prototyping card and MacForth. I don't know > anything about their serial card, except that as of two months ago it > would not run with A/UX. The four-port card is cheap ( <$300, I think). Interestingly, I have been looking into these boards, also. I just got some literature from Creative Solutions, Inc. about them. Here is what they have to say: The Hurdler-HDS and HQS are dual and quad port serial boards for the Macintosh II. The Mini-DIN connectors and signals used on this interface are the same as those provided with the Macintosh II. The local 68008 microprocessor offloads most real-time serial activity from the Macintosh II's 68020 processor. All I/O is buffered to guarantee that no data is lost while the 68020 is busy servicing other higher priority interrupt sources such as floppy disk or LocalTalk. Sustained rates in excess of 38,400 baud are available on all four channels simultaneously. The 68008 may be custom programmed to handle unique, higher performance end-user applications such as MIDI, process automation and networking. The Hurdler-HDS/HQS is accessed in exactly the same manner as the existing two serial ports on the Macintosh II. These are named ".ain", ".aout", ".bin", ".bout". At startup, each Hurdler-HDS/HQS serial channel is automatically configured and assigned the first available driver name in alphabetical sequence. For example, a HDS plugged into slot 9 will have ports that may be accessed as ".cin", ".cout", ".din", and ".dout". The current ".a" and ".b" port drivers may be aliased to HDS/HQS ports via the control panel allowing existing communications applications to operate over HDS/HQS serial channels. FEATURES * Very cost effective * HDS has 2 serial ports; HQS has 4 * RS-232 and RS-422 compatible * On-board 68008 microprocessor * Operates at speeds in excess of 38,400 baud per channel * HDS may be upgraded to 4 ports * A/UX driver available The pricing on these boards is $299 for the HDS and $379 for the HQS. I talked to them on the phone; as with everybody else, they are waiting for the new version of the serial driver/Chooser to come out which will address additional ports under Mac OS (this summer?). In the meantime, they have an FKEY which can alias calls to the standard ports into calls to the extra ports. I would appreciate hearing about any additional information people have on these or other boards, and in particular on how one can get a copy of the beta serial driver Alexis mentioned. * * ** Scott Robert Anderson gatech!emoryu1!phssra * * * ** phssra@unix.cc.emory.edu phssra@emoryu1.bitnet * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *