[comp.unix.xenix] SCO Xenix 386, VP/ix, multiport cards and Intel 386 Inboards...

terry@terminus.UUCP (terry) (02/02/88)

> o  I told him about 386 Xenix and that he could probably find a really nice
> multi-user accounting package for it (this is the reason why he now needs
> a multi-user system: on line order entry concurrent with accounts recievable
> and inventory ...).

Try Open Systems.  It works under BBX from BASIS, Inc.

> o  I told him about smart multiport cards that will support up to eight 
> terminals per board.

Beware of "smart" cards;  SCO, when going from 2.1.3 to 2.2.0 changed the
of the clist structs and unless you have right rev drivers and the right
ROMs, they can clobber important stuff.

> Does the Intel 386 Inboard work?  

Don't know a thing about it

> Will Xenix386 run on it without a SINGLE hitch due to the hardware 
> configuration?  I know that 386 Xenix runs flawlessly on a Compaque 386,

Au contriare (or something spelled marginally simiarly);  The Compaq 386/20
has some hardware incompatabilities, ESPECIALLY with intelliport boards.  To
be fair, they have a compatability problem with the 386/20;  they aren't
fast enough or there is a bus speed problem, or whatever will get me the least
number of offended replies.  The bottom line is, the bus speed is to fast for
your average edge-triggered card.  Contrary to popular belief, the 'ol IBM
microchannel bus is not level-triggered to speed things up, but to allow slow
hardware to keep talking to it.

> Does VP/ix work (for Word Perfect and other DOS standards like Lotus
> and such)?  What happens when you try to run a DOS program that does
> direct video RAM writes ??? Kablamo?  The whole system goes down or
> kernel panic or somthing?  Potential nightmare?

The VP/ix under the ISC UNIX (Bell Tech, et al) we had ran flight simulator.


> Do these smart multiport boards and related drivers work reliably, without 
> maintainance (Computone, ARnet, Digiboard, Belltech) and constant downtime 
> of the hardware and the O.S.???

Pre-maintenance is required of at least the Computone, that I know of;  it
consists of changing the /atx/attype file as follows:

from
type * 7 E 1 9600 XON FIXPAR NOCHANGE
to
type * 8 1 9600

It seems that they didn't want the stty command or the ioctl() routine to
work with it out of the box;  also, binary I/O (read "TERM,XMODEM,UUCP")
as lives in the G-protocol, among others, H.A.T.E.S. 7 data bits, for the
obvios reason that 7 isn't binary to the programs.  KERMIT tends to like
it if you are annoyingly careful about parity on the other end...

After that, tho, the Computone is a pretty nice board; especially if you
have transparent printing in mind.


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| Terry Lambert           UUCP: ...!decvax!utah-cs!century!terry              |
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| SLC, Utah                                                                   |
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