[comp.unix.sysv386] Equinox -vs- AT&T 6386E

lbert359@pallas.athenanet.com (Lee Bertagnolli) (02/20/91)

I have recently endeavored to install an Equinox Megaports 12-port board in
my AT&T 6386E (20MHz Olivetti-built) running AT&T Sys V 3.2.3.  There seems
to be some sort of conflict.  When the board is physically installed in the
system, the floppy drives are no longer accessible (which makes it rather
difficult to install the device drivers :-).  Equinox has suggested that 
there is a PAL upgrade to the Olivetti motherboard, but AT&T does not
acknowledge that any such upgrade exists (I talked with my local service guys
*and* called the hotline, but nobody knew anything).  Equinox has sent me
two different boards, but to no avail.  

This is particularly frustrating.  The AT&T supplied IPC boards aren't worth
a darn.  I had a DigiBoard C/X board, which worked great, but costs nearly
twice the money as the Megaports.  Does anybody have any ideas?


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norm@cfctech.cfc.com (Norman J. Meluch) (02/20/91)

lbert359@pallas.athenanet.com (Lee Bertagnolli) writes:

{L} This is particularly frustrating.  The AT&T supplied IPC boards aren't worth
{L} a darn.

Lee.  Seems that both you and I have had our troubles with AT&T.

However, with release of ver 3.0 of their IPC software, I find AT&T's boards
to be quite useful for most any "PC" serial port application that you need.
Either from UNIX (tm) or via a network application (shared modem or printer).

I wouldn't go dogging them without specific examples.

To date we run HP Laserjets (500,II, & III), share spoolers, serial to
parallel converters, modems, and Okidata printers off our IPC 802 boards
with  *absolutely* no troubles.

Although abit awkward in size, the 802 board performs quite well and I am
very pleased with them.  I have not had any experience with the (smaller
EPORTS-like) 900 series of the IPC boards, but rumor has been that they
perform equally well.

						- Norm.
-- 
|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Norman J. Meluch ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|
| Mail: norm@cfctech.cfc.com           Fax:(313)948-4975  Voice:(313)948-4809 |
| Note: The opinions expressed here are in no way to be confused with valid   |
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john@banzai.PCC.COM (John Canning) (02/24/91)

In article <1991Feb20.141511.6085@cfctech.cfc.com> norm@cfctech.cfc.com (Norman J. Meluch) writes:
>
>However, with release of ver 3.0 of their IPC software, I find AT&T's boards
>to be quite useful for most any "PC" serial port application that you need.
>Either from UNIX (tm) or via a network application (shared modem or printer).
>

AT&T is now up version 4.0 of their IPC driver software for the IPC-802
and IPC-900 cards.  Version 3.0 is very important for the IPC-802 card -
it will lock up continuously if you have a lower version driver.  The 4.0
drivers seem to do a better job with modems than the 3.0 drivers.