jim@lambda.com (Jim Dixon) (02/21/91)
Various issues dealing with Equinox Megaport Hardware Flow Control, or the lack thereof. The following is a severe flamage, written by someone who has seriously *never*, *ever* flamed at anyone on the net publicly. I figured I'd save it for a good cause. Well here goes: I can't tell you how incredibly FRUSTRATED I am regarding the issue of Hardware flow control on the Megaport 24 card running under Interactive. I fully understand the issues of the "unusual" connections when you use the "Full modem control" hardware option. No matter how many times someone at Equinox tells me that I'm stupid and don't know my connections from my ---hole, the fact still remains that, I DO, and furthermore am quite good at following instructions in the manual. I have wired 2 separate sites this way. *ALSO*, I'm sick to death of them telling me that they can't imagine what the possible use of Hardware Flow Control could be. What difference does it make. I *REALLY* *HONESTLY* *ACTUALLY* have a valid use for it. Yes, these uses *REALLY* exist out there in the real world! Then comes that really bad part.... I called them wondering what the references to the "rtsflow and ctsflow" termio parameters were, and they thought I had 2 heads. It took them a while to even figure out that Interactive didn't even support these. Then they told me that since ISC doesn't support these, that there is no way to enable Hardware Flow Control under Interactive at all, and besides why would you want it anyway? This sent me right through the roof! I told them that there *HAD* to be a way to do it, or at least be able to add one quite easily. They said that they would check in to it and get back with me. So far, I have heard nothing. BLAH..... Wouldn't it be nice if the card supported CTS flow control by default. Regular serial ports that use UARTs and the like do it. Regardless of *WHAT* software you are using, if you drop CTS, the UART's transmitter will stop sending until you raise it again, independent of software control. Why the h--l can't Equinox do the same thing? The control In pin (whichever one is mapped to the CTS input, by mode) is internally pulled up on the card, so if the CTS flow was enabled, and nothing was connected to it, it would just operate as normal, transparently, painlessly.... it would be wonderful... Ahh, I feel better already... Jim Dixon jim@lambda.uucp or dixon@info.com Lambda Telecom, Sandy Eggo, CA WATS: (800) SIT-ONIT (seriously, call me) Voice: (619) 584-4100 Fax: (619) 584-4114
gandrews@netcom.COM (Greg Andrews) (02/22/91)
In article <394@icjapan.uucp> Jim Dixon <dixon@info.com> writes: > >Various issues dealing with Equinox Megaport Hardware Flow Control, >or the lack thereof. > >The following is a severe flamage... > Yikes! I don't want to get in the way of your flamethrower, Jim, but I'd like to comment on a techical point that you mention... > [flames about getting support on wiring issues deleted] > [more flames about CTSFLOW/RTSFLOW issues deleted] > >Wouldn't it be nice if the card supported CTS flow control by default. >Regular serial ports that use UARTs and the like do it. Regardless >of *WHAT* software you are using, if you drop CTS, the UART's transmitter >will stop sending until you raise it again, independent of software control. Uh...if you're talking about an 8250/16450/16550 uart chip on a standard 'non-intelligent' serial card, that's not the case. The uart does no flow control interpretation whatsoever. It pays no attention to XON/XOFF characters, and the only thing it does with CTS is turn a bit on/off in one of its status registers. If you feed the uart a character to transmit, it will transmit that character whether CTS is up or down. It's up to the driver software to check the state of the control signals and take the appropriate action (or inaction). -- .-------------------------------------------. | Greg Andrews | gandrews@netcom.COM | `-------------------------------------------'
grant@bluemoon.uucp (Grant DeLorean) (02/23/91)
jim@lambda.com (Jim Dixon) writes: >I can't tell you how incredibly FRUSTRATED I am regarding the issue >of Hardware flow control on the Megaport 24 card running under Interactive. >I fully understand the issues of the "unusual" connections when you >use the "Full modem control" hardware option. No matter how many times I was having somewhat similar problems with another card, with actually some worse ones thrown in. I was using a Connect Tech Intellicon device. Avoid these guys at all costs unless you only run QNX and will never run anything else. Their UNIX driver is rotten, and they refuse to fix it even when I give them exactly where their problems are. They also won't give the technical detail required to write my own damn driver. The cable needed to get the ports off the card only carries 7 pins through anyway. Bleah. :-{ However... I have switched to a DigiBoard, and it is well worth every penny and then some. We have hardware flow control (which can be disabled if you wish, but the default is you get the control) and the driver works flawlessly. And Digiboard knows what support is. The techs are fast, courteous, knowledgeable with the product, treat the customer as an intelligent human being, and actually are helpful. On top of this outstanding support offered, the boards are high quality and very effective. The current drivers are always downloadable from their free support BBS, even on the first call. I can not say enough good things about Digi International. :-) It is good to be able to give a glowing good report on a company and product here, with the Megaport and FP hole complaints going on this has gotten to be a pretty dark newsgroup... -- Grant DeLorean (grant@bluemoon) {n8emr|nstar}!bluemoon!grant