larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) (12/14/89)
> Also I hope Arnet and other manufacturers will listen our comments on > making ports better and more reliable. Thank you for your time with > your commnets... I have not decide on buying next multi-ports yet... I found a deal yesterday on a couple of Computone boards - and should have them in my hands over the weekend and up and running (or should I say testing) under 386/ix. One of the boards is an Atvantage, and the other an Intelleport - and both combined set me back $175. Computone is sending me the current drivers and we shall see how those boards run under ix. -- Larry Snyder, Northern Star Communications, Notre Dame, IN uucp: root@nstar -or- ...!iuvax!ndmath!nstar!root
scotto@crash.cts.com (Scott O'Connell) (12/15/89)
In article <511083@nstar.UUCP> larry@nstar.UUCP (Larry Snyder) writes: >> Also I hope Arnet and other manufacturers will listen our comments on >> making ports better and more reliable. Thank you for your time with >> your commnets... I have not decide on buying next multi-ports yet... I've finally given up on Arnet. I spent hours on the phone trying to convince them that their product didn't handle modem control signals correctly. It was finally acknowledged that they had a problem IN SEPTEMBER. I know I'm not the only person who noticed that DTR doesn't always cycle, and CD isn't always recognized, but Arnet kept the attitide that *I WAS THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD WITH THIS PROBLEM*! I have been promised the new drivers 3 times since they [I] identified the problem. Each time the deadline comes I have to call again to get a new release date. I find it interesting how so many USERS report the SAME problems to a vendor, and how the vendor can claim "Jeeze, it must be something you're doing wrong!" I'm tired of spending hours of the phone explaining the problem over and over and over and then finding out another user has just described the same symtoms to them. Am I being unreasonable? Am I starting to take these problems personally? Maybe. In all fairness to Arnet, I just wrote a letter to the tech support manager stating my dissatisfaction. I would appreciate all of you having similar problems to do likewise. It only took me 15 minutes and I'm hoping it will at least bring managements attention to the problems. I need to expand my operation to 15 ports and was looking at their 16 port board. Now I'm looking for something else. I installed an Equinox MegaPort the other day and am initially impressed. Regardless, Arnet will not get any more business from me or my associates. -- Scott O'Connell UUCP: {nosc, ucsd, hplabs!hp-sdd}!crash!ipars!scotto ARPA: crash!ipars!scotto@nosc.mil INET: scotto@ipars.cts.com
aland@infmx.UUCP (Dr. Scump) (12/16/89)
Has anybody used the Consensys Powerports intelligent ports card?
I have yet to see *any* mention of this card, and their marketing
blurbs sound very promising. They support 8 full-screen tasks
per physical terminal (and you can hot-key between them), offloads
all communications work to an on-board NS32000, etc. They currently
have drivers for SCO XENIX 2.2.3 (not SCO UNIX V/3.2) and AT&T Sys V
Rel 3.2.[12], with support for SCO UNIX and 386/ix 2.0.2 on the way.
I've had several conversations with their Director of Sales, and
he is sending me a board to eval (and one of their caching ESDI
controllers that is supposed to beat the pants off DPT).
Now, are there any *users* out there who actually use either the ports
card or the controller? Experiences?
Followups to comp.unix.xenix.
--
Alan S. Denney @ Informix Software, Inc.
{pyramid|uunet}!infmx!aland "I want to live!
-------------------------------------------- as an honest man,
Disclaimer: These opinions are mine alone. to get all I deserve
If I am caught or killed, the secretary and to give all I can."
will disavow any knowledge of my actions. - S. Vegatim@comcon.UUCP (Tim Brown) (12/18/89)
I have a couple clients using them now for about a year. They are nice, a little pricey compared to some others, but very good boards. Their *only* weak point is thier handling of eight bit dependant software. For example I use a computone inteliport on my system and can run vpix from a televideo 965 in wyse60 mode. This is not possible on the system running consensys. In all fairness however, if I run vpix on a *real* wyse60 all works very well. In my experience, consensys boards are very fussy in there handling of eight bit data, more so than need be. The multiple sessions are *nice*, best implementation of it I have used. I had a lot of difficulty a year ago debugging/working around eight bit defiencies (uucp would not work at first) but their tech support stuck with me and all my installations are working fine in *all* respects, with the sole exception of the wyse60/vpix problem I mentioned already. My basic advice is, if you want to put a cheaper system together, use computone. On the other hand if money is no object and you have sophisticated users who appreciate multiple sessions or require them, go with consensys. I have never used X, so can't comment on that at all. Transparent print works very slowly out of the box. The manual claims you can tweak this, but thank god my client went with some more spool printers before I had to try that! Tim Brown | Computer Connection | (attmail or uunet)!comcon!tim |
garyb@crpmks.UUCP (Gary Blumenstein) (12/21/89)
In article <1989Dec12.162639.26573@ddsw1.MCS.COM> you write: >In article <8912120109.AA17762@decwrl.dec.com> paine@fungus.dec.com (Willy Paine) writes: >> >>I am still looking for good multi-ports board for modem type terminal > >Digiboard IS good. One of the better ones. They are not cheap, but are >worth it. Not for my money. I'm sure the net has already heard about my positive experience with the Equinox Megaport boards. Once again, these discussions compell me to keep re-emphasizing this. If you buy DigibBoard, (or Arnet, Computone, Anvil, Specialix, Etc. for that matter) you are essentially buying the same OLD technology just served to us a different way. In my opinion, you LOSE in terms of price/performance, functionality, flexibility, expandability, ease of installation, and use. You will wind up with the same OLD problems. For example, you will be surprised when you find out that your $800 smart board can't run bi-directional UUCP w/ modem control. You will be dismayed to find out that you have to change standard terminal stty settings in order to accomodate the intelligent capabilities of some boards e.g. Intelliport TAB processing. Forget about the poor folks who don't even know what "stty" IS! You will be annoyed to find yourself constantly ordering PROM and driver upgrades, and you will be extra peeved when these so called upgrades (in some cases) actually DEGRADE the performance of your board! Sure, I can't wait to spend *my* hard earned money on this! I realize that I'm speaking in very general terms here but I'm coming from a position that empathizes with everyone who like myself, has already spent considerable time and money on intelligent i/o products, and has wound up less than satisfied. Once again, I will state that people who are shopping for smart boards are fortunate that they have a fresh, new alternative to consider. In my opinion, Equinox sets the quintessential performance and functionality standard that we have been demanding from the i/o board market for years, and have not been getting up until now. Now as far as DigiBoard is concerned, you will find much better price / performance with Equinox. Notice how DigiBoard didn't include Equinox in their latest ad campaign which shows graphs of the relative performance characteristics of several competitor's boards. DigiBoard might claim that Equinox is not yet considered a major competitor so therefore they had no reason to include them in the charts, but I think otherwise. Digiboard uses the same old commercial processor+UART design that been around for years. Theres no way they can hope to compete with custom designed ASIC technology and polling drivers that have been specifically designed and tuned to handle serial i/o. >Specialix is a new one for us, but very promising. The driver has a few >bugs in it, but nothing terrible that UUCP won't deal with. They also have >pledged to solve the problems -- more than many other companies have said >they would do (or have actually done)! I've heard several other board companies make pledges too. Why would the pledges coming from Specialix be any more convincing than pledges coming from say, Computone or Anvil? The fact that consumers have become conditioned to accept less than perfect functionality from these vendors is a shame. I realize that there are a good number of dedicated equipment vendors in the marketplace turning out novel products, and that some of these products are bound to have bugs, but I am sick and tired of paying thousands of dollars to play "field engineer" for these companies when I should be buying products that work out of the box, from day one. The intelligent I/O board market isn't exactly new anymore. Doesn't it seem ludicrous to buy expensive serial boards only to find that you have to run certain applications on your dumb port? (Note: this may not necessarily be true with UUCP on Specialix, as Karl seems to indicate.) Incidentally, I read Karl's earlier posting about the Specialix boards and considered using them before I went with Equinox. The 56K baud speed seemed attractive however, I after doing some research, I'm still convinced that Equinox is the superior board. (I will follow-up on this in a forthcoming article.) Karl, have you looked at Equinox yet? What are your thoughts? I havn't found any flaws with the Megaport boards and believe me, I've done my best to try to find something that wouldn't work on them. The board emulates the standard serial port so well that we had SL/IP running with SCO's TCP/ip and getting 1800cps with practically no overhead. Considering that SCO claims SL/IP will only work on the standard serial port is a good tribute to Equinox's functionality. Another thing, a friend of mine was able to install his Equinox board under SCO UNIX 3.2 and use the INTERACTIVE drivers with no problem whatsoever. If anyone wants datails on this, they can call me. What I like about the Equinox is that I can take it out of the box and plug it into my computer without messing around with switches or jumpers, install the drivers, plug in a standard 6 lead modular RJ11 cable to my Telebit (save yourself some time and use one of Equinox's RJ11<->DB25 adapters), enable getty and walk away. No hidden surprises, no field engineering required, no support hotline callbacks, no driver revisions, no ROM upgrades. It just works. Period. Disclaimer * * These are only my personal opinions, not Equinox's, and not my company's. -- Gary M. Blumenstein, UNIX Network Administrator // CIBA-GEIGY Corporation USA ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phone (914) 347-4700 7 Skyline Drive, Hawthorne, NY 10532 FAX (914) 347-5687 UUCP ...uunet!philabs!crpmks!garyb
karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Karl Denninger) (12/23/89)
In article <1101@crpmks.UUCP> garyb@crpmks.UUCP (Gary Blumenstein) writes: >In article <1989Dec12.162639.26573@ddsw1.MCS.COM> you write: >>In article <8912120109.AA17762@decwrl.dec.com> paine@fungus.dec.com (Willy Paine) writes: >>> >>>I am still looking for good multi-ports board for modem type terminal >> >>Digiboard IS good. One of the better ones. They are not cheap, but are >>worth it. > >Not for my money. I'm sure the net has already heard about my positive >experience with the Equinox Megaport boards. Once again, these discussions >compell me to keep re-emphasizing this. If you buy DigibBoard, (or Arnet, >Computone, Anvil, Specialix, Etc. for that matter) you are essentially buying >the same OLD technology just served to us a different way. Specialix? Have you seen what they are doing? Or are you hypothesizing? Admittedly Digi has the old venerable technology -- but they execute it >very< well. Specialix is a different ballgame entirely. Specialix boards are a multiprocessor distributed system, and not even in the same ballpark as the others you mention. Equinox may be the same; I haven't worked with one of those so I can't comment fairly. >In my opinion, you LOSE in terms of price/performance, functionality, >flexibility, expandability, ease of installation, and use. You will wind >up with the same OLD problems. For example, you will be surprised when >you find out that your $800 smart board can't run bi-directional UUCP w/ >modem control. You will be dismayed to find out that you have to change >standard terminal stty settings in order to accomodate the intelligent >capabilities of some boards e.g. Intelliport TAB processing. Forget about the >poor folks who don't even know what "stty" IS! You will be annoyed to >find yourself constantly ordering PROM and driver upgrades, and you will be >extra peeved when these so called upgrades (in some cases) actually DEGRADE >the performance of your board! Sure, I can't wait to spend *my* hard earned >money on this! Prom updates? What PROMs? Specialix has all firmware in "loadware"; the driver loads the board on powerup. Anvil? Yep. Proms there. Digi? Nope -- all downloaded (again). >consider. In my opinion, Equinox sets the quintessential performance and >functionality standard that we have been demanding from the i/o board market >for years, and have not been getting up until now. Ok. How many ports can it run on INPUT at 19200 and not lose anything? Can it do 38,400, and again, how many without character loss? >Now as far as DigiBoard is concerned, you will find much better price / >performance with Equinox. Notice how DigiBoard didn't include Equinox in >their latest ad campaign which shows graphs of the relative performance >characteristics of several competitor's boards. Again, check out Specialix too. >been around for years. Theres no way they can hope to compete with custom >designed ASIC technology and polling drivers that have been specifically >designed and tuned to handle serial i/o. Or Multiprocessor technology with 20Mhz CPUs (which, by the way, do a damn good job of running SIO ports; I am familiar with the Z280 that specialix uses). >>Specialix is a new one for us, but very promising. The driver has a few >>bugs in it, but nothing terrible that UUCP won't deal with. They also have >>pledged to solve the problems -- more than many other companies have said >>they would do (or have actually done)! > >I've heard several other board companies make pledges too. Why would the >pledges coming from Specialix be any more convincing than pledges coming from >say, Computone or Anvil? Well, perhaps because they are willing to allow us source code access? Naw, that couldn't have anything to do with it, could it? Can I get source code (under a non-disclosure, of course) from Equinox? If not, I'm not interested at >any< price. Specialix will do this for you, which means you CAN fix the bugs that >are< there. Seriously, when was the last time you got your hands on any commercial product that didn't have at least one nit you would like to fix? >The intelligent I/O board market isn't exactly new anymore. Doesn't it seem >ludicrous to buy expensive serial boards only to find that you have to run >certain applications on your dumb port? (Note: this may not necessarily >be true with UUCP on Specialix, as Karl seems to indicate.) It certainly isn't! >Incidentally, I read Karl's earlier posting about the Specialix boards and >considered using them before I went with Equinox. The 56K baud speed seemed >attractive however, I after doing some research, I'm still convinced that >Equinox is the superior board. (I will follow-up on this in a forthcoming >article.) Please do. I'd like to have some good commentary on this subject! >Karl, have you looked at Equinox yet? What are your thoughts? I havn't found >any flaws with the Megaport boards and believe me, I've done my best to try >to find something that wouldn't work on them. The board emulates the standard >serial port so well that we had SL/IP running with SCO's TCP/ip and getting >1800cps with practically no overhead. Considering that SCO claims SL/IP will >only work on the standard serial port is a good tribute to Equinox's >functionality. Equinox hasn't given us a board to play with, we don't know who distributes them. We >need< an evaluation unit to make decisions and form conclusions. We simply won't buy a board that we might want to scrap; we tried that with Anvil and won't again. Specialix has gotten us a card for evaluation (through a distributor, but still it is here). I have another distributor who will allow us to use a board >until we are satisfied with it< -- meaning if there are bugs, we can get them fixed and don't have to worry about needing to return the card until it works. Will Equinox do this for us? Will they do it for anyone? >Another thing, a friend of mine was able to install his Equinox board under >SCO UNIX 3.2 and use the INTERACTIVE drivers with no problem whatsoever. If >anyone wants datails on this, they can call me. Most Unix 3.2 drivers are interchangable if you know how to install them. This is not surprising at all (I freely interchange drivers all the time without trouble between 3.2 systems). >What I like about the Equinox is that I can take it out of the box and plug it >into my computer without messing around with switches or jumpers, install the >drivers, plug in a standard 6 lead modular RJ11 cable to my Telebit (save >yourself some time and use one of Equinox's RJ11<->DB25 adapters), enable >getty and walk away. No hidden surprises, no field engineering required, >no support hotline callbacks, no driver revisions, no ROM upgrades. It just >works. Period. That's interesting. Can it sustain 38,400 baud INPUT on say, 6 to 8 ports without problems? SUSTAINED transfer now, not burst, and with no flow control. The Specialix board seems to be able to do that with Zmodem (which is one hell of a way to beat up I/O channels). How about 56KB? Can it do that >at all<? The Specialix board can and does. Is it expandable without buying another card? I can take the Specialix board to 32 ports from 8 in modular steps. -- Karl Denninger (karl@ddsw1.MCS.COM, <well-connected>!ddsw1!karl) Public Access Data Line: [+1 708 566-8911], Voice: [+1 708 566-8910] Macro Computer Solutions, Inc. "Quality Solutions at a Fair Price"