jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. DeArmond) (09/04/90)
I want to do something different for a change. I want to post some GOOD
news. I have found a very good smart async card backed by excellent
customer support.
The card is the Comtrol Ultra made by (you guessed it) Comtrol, inc.
This card contains an 80286 running at about 9 mhz, up to 1 meg of
RAM (128k shared) and up to 16 ports. The UARTS are Zilog SCCs which
means that sync protocols could be supported. The 8 port card is about
$900 dollars. The card comes with your choice of 9 or 25 pin connectors
in an outboard pod. The card comes with an Interactive format installpkg
disk and a self-booting diagnostic disk.
The installation is the worst part. The installpkg disk failed to
install. After cpio'ing the diskette off to the hard disk and mucking
around a bit, I got it to work. Hint: Build the kernal using kconfig
instead of the installpkg option.
Once the installation is complete, the board comes right up and runs.
A script that runs at boot time from /etc/idrc loads the board's pump
code and kicks it off. The board is fast enough to keep several Telebits
full and best of all.....
IT HAS REAL HONEST-TO-GOD HARDWARE FLOW CONTROL.
Take RTS low and the output data stops!! What's so hard about that?
If you don't want or need flow control, there is a supplied utility
that turns it on or off on a port by port basis.
But it gets better. I ordered 2 boards. One board was DOA. It would
pass diagnostics but would keep the system from booting under Unix.
I called tech support about 3:00 PM that afternoon and described the
problem. They volunteered to FEDEX a new board to me overnight and
asked me to return the old one as was convenient. The guy also suggested
that I keep the manual and disks as they might be useful as archive
copies! The board was here the next morning and worked perfectly.
And as I referred to in another posting, these people were of great
help in resolving a problem between this board and a sync board running
SNA.
They support small VARS and have generous discounts. I highly recommend
the company and the product.
John
--
John De Armond, WD4OQC | We can no more blame our loss of freedom on congress
Radiation Systems, Inc. | than we can prostitution on pimps. Both simply
Atlanta, Ga | provide broker services for their customers.
{emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd| - Dr. W Williams | **I am the NRA** ed@maxed.amg.com (Ed Whittemore) (09/04/90)
In article <3862@rsiatl.UUCP> jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. DeArmond) writes: >I want to do something different for a change. I want to post some GOOD >news. I have found a very good smart async card backed by excellent >customer support. > >The card is the Comtrol Ultra made by (you guessed it) Comtrol, inc. ... Yes, but it doesn't have full modem control on all the ports, and it doesn't work in a lot of 386s, like Nothgates with Motherboard Factory motherboards, or some Compaqs, ... Try the Specialix boards, they do, and they're cheaper. -- Ed Whittemore uunet!maxed!ed ed@maxed.amg.com American Micro Group, Inc. 201-944-3293
joe@astph.UUCP (Joe Broniszewski) (09/05/90)
We have also had very good response from Comtrol. I did an evaluation of about 6 other multiport serial boards. Comtrol came out on top in may areas. They have great tech support; this IMHO is their strongest point. If anyone is would like some of the information that I gathered from doing this evaluation, ask by e-mail. I looked at Arnet, Consensys, Digiboard, Stargate, Comtrol, Anvil, and LSInc. -- Joe Broniszewski || Philadelphia || (814) 234-8592x4 astph!joe@psuvax1 || Phillies || psuvax1!astph!joe
jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. DeArmond) (09/05/90)
ed@maxed.amg.com (Ed Whittemore) writes: >Yes, but it doesn't have full modem control on all the ports, and I beg your pardon, but all 8 ports on our cards have full modem control including proper handling of DCD (must be a first for Interactive.) If you don't have modem control on a port, perhaps you forgot to run rtscts against that port? >it doesn't work in a lot of 386s, like Nothgates with Motherboard >Factory motherboards, or some Compaqs, ... Works fine on the compaq deskpro 33 mhz machines at our site. I can't speak to second tier motherboards. >Try the Specialix boards, they do, and they're cheaper. Yes, they seem to have a nice product from the literature I've seen. However, they dropped the ball on our request for an evaluation board. (hint, hint, prod, prod :-) As to price, the VAR price is about the same for both products. One other thing I forgot to mention about the Ultra board. With a simple flip of a row of jumpers, the card will talk RS-422. I can think of several occasions when this would have come in very handy, such as when driving a printer 3 stories away from the computer. John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | We can no more blame our loss of freedom on congress Radiation Systems, Inc. | than we can prostitution on pimps. Both simply Atlanta, Ga | provide broker services for their customers. {emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd| - Dr. W Williams | **I am the NRA**