Telebit & Arnet

[Larry Snyder]

> Ask Larry Snyder about his experiences with Digiboard & Computone w/
> Telebits!  They were not successful.  Last I heard on the net, Larry was
> using a Comtrol Hostess DUMB board, which worked fine. 
> What goes on now, Larry?

The Comtrol board worked fine, but as can be expected the system became
loaded real quick under ISC with 4 high speed serial lines all locked
at high baud rates, besides that the Hostess board has been loosing
1488s, 1489s and 8250s over the last 5 months, so I decided to send
it back to Comtrol for repairs and 16550As.  I don't know if the problem
with the chips going was related to age or power supply problems, but one
of the ports had no DTR, another no receive and a couple no transmit -
and it finally got to the point where 3 ports worked out of 8.  The board
is 5 years old, and Hostess charges $10 for the 16550As, and $2 each
for the 88 and 89s - plus a $50 labor charge which doesn't seem bad.

A couple of months ago (this last summer) I played with the Digiboard
top of the line 8 port 12.5 mhz board, as well as the Computone 
10 mhz 80186 board with poor results.

Last week I picked up another Intelliport board (actually 2 of them
for $170 including shipping - but one of the I swapped for X windows) 
so here I am again with Computone products!

My game plan is to limit the ports to one way communications (no
bi-directional) with modems - 3 incoming and one outgoing and hopefully
the Computone will work (fingers crossed).

Right now I've been connected to my host on the first port, but I need
some RJ35 to DB25 connectors before installing the other modems.

I will keep you up to date.

   




> Also, I'm no expert on the anvil board, but doesn't it have a switch
> for interrupts?  If it uses interrupts, then that may be the reason
> why it doesn't run into any problems with Telebits.  
> 
> I like the Anvil stuff.  Their software Crocodile and Monitor is
> pretty neat.  I haven't used it, but I've heard it is really good
> for identifying system bottlenecks in Xenix.
> 
> Wolf Kozel
> Arnet


-- 
Larry Snyder, Northern Star Communications, Notre Dame, IN
uucp: root at nstar -or- ...!iuvax!ndmath!nstar!root