jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) (05/26/91)
I managed to inherit one of these beasts. I have heard that only driver
available for this intelligent multiport board is the one that comes with it
and it only supports Xenix (SCO Xenix 286/386 2.2.x and IBM Xenix 2.0).
I know that AST no longer sells this board and I have heard from someone else
who has recently acquired one of these boards that the above mentioned driver
is the only one that AST produced for their EightPort/XN.
What I want to do is get the board up and running under ISC Unix, but I have
checked the supported hardware list, and the board isn't mentioned (not
surprising since AST quit selling the board), but the box says that the board
will run under Unix and Xenix. This tells me that there has to be a driver
for some flavor of Unix. There's no indication in the manual as to which Unix
has a driver.
I have had good experiences with acquired used AST boards since I have three
AST FourPort boards and this AST EightPort/XN that I just acquired last week.
Any suggestions on how to get the board up and running under ISC Unix would be
appreciated. I don't mind banging on the Xenix 2.2.x device driver, but I
don't want to do that unless I have to.
Also, please don't say "use FAS", because this board is an intelligent
multiport board with an 80188, 256K RAM, and a Signetics SCC2698 Octal UART.
FAS only works with dumb boards that use NS16450, NS16550A, or i82510 UART's.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
// JCA
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