bill@cosi.UUCP (Bill Michaelson) (11/28/88)
I'm currently using Microport release 3.0e with the [Locus] Merge prod- uct. From what I've heard from other Microport users, product quality and system support was reputedly lousy in the past. However, the situation has been improving lately, so they say. I think I agree, but I am not thoroughly satisfied. One extremely annoying problem with the software I'm running has been the unreliability of serial communications devices under Merge/386. Are others experiencing problems similar to mine? Do MS-DOS products such as (or similar to) Procomm or Laplink work properly? Do they operate at the highest baud rates? How are you attaching the devices (e.g. direct/kernel/ virtual)? Another annoying problem (unrelated to Merge): I have four serial ports on my '386 machine. As is typical with many AT clones, the ports may each be configured to one of four addresses (called COM1-COM4 in the MS- DOS world), and one of two interrupt levels (IRQ2 and 3). The device drivers that come with the system apparently don't allow serial ports to share interrupt levels. It's puzzling because the documentation indi- cates that multiport boards use single interrupt levels. A command called ttypatch is used to configure the drivers. I've tried using ttypatch to configure two of my single ports (at dif- ferent addresses, of course) to a single interrupt level. I can start a getty on the first device with no problem. As soon as I start a getty on the second device, the first one fails (the getty's appear to interfere with each other). Stopping the second getty removes the problem. I can reproduce the same problem by reversing the ports also. So it seems that all four ports work. But I can't let them share inter- rupts, so I can only use two at a time!. So how do the multiport boards work? I don't want to buy one - I figure the configuration I've got ought to be supported - it's common enough. Is there anyone out there that has overcome this problem? Thanks in advance for any suggestions. -- Bill Michaelson, COS, Inc. \ "Better to keep your mouth shut, and let Voice 609-771-6705 / people think you're a fool, than to open rutgers!princeton!mccc!cosi!bill \ it..." CompuServe 72416,1026 / -Mark Twain
wnp@dcs.UUCP (Wolf N. Paul) (11/30/88)
(I have cross-posted this follow-up to comp.unix.microport, as it is more appropriate and more likely to find expert readers there.) In article <112@cosi.UUCP> bill@cosi.UUCP (Bill Michaelson) writes: > >Another annoying problem (unrelated to Merge): I have four serial ports >on my '386 machine. As is typical with many AT clones, the ports may >each be configured to one of four addresses (called COM1-COM4 in the MS- >DOS world), and one of two interrupt levels (IRQ2 and 3). The device >drivers that come with the system apparently don't allow serial ports to >share interrupt levels. It's puzzling because the documentation indi- >cates that multiport boards use single interrupt levels. A command >called ttypatch is used to configure the drivers. As it was explained to me, the problem is the following: The driver will support multiple ports (at different addresses) using the same interrupt IF THEY ARE ON THE SAME BOARD. In other words, two ports may share an interrupt, two boards may not. Unfortunately, standard AT and XT style com boards, which support two ports per board, are set up to use two interrupts per board, and both of these may be shared by up to two boards. Thus, it is set up the reverse from what the Uport serial driver expects. The Uport release notes explicitly refer to "Digiboard and similar" boards; I didn't see that reference until after I got frustrated myself with the same problem. -- Wolf N. Paul * 3387 Sam Rayburn Run * Carrollton TX 75007 * (214) 306-9101 UUCP: killer!dcs!wnp ESL: 62832882 DOMAIN: dcs!wnp@killer.dallas.tx.us TLX: 910-380-0585 EES PLANO UD