Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!njsmu!mccc!cosi!bill From: bill@cosi.UUCP (Bill Michaelson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Microport serial communications Keywords: RS232 microport merge interrupts comm Message-ID: <112@cosi.UUCP> Date: 28 Nov 88 01:37:21 GMT Organization: COS, Inc. Lines: 46 I'm currently using Microport release 3.0e with the [Locus] Merge prod- uct. From what I've heard from other Microport users, product quality and system support was reputedly lousy in the past. However, the situation has been improving lately, so they say. I think I agree, but I am not thoroughly satisfied. One extremely annoying problem with the software I'm running has been the unreliability of serial communications devices under Merge/386. Are others experiencing problems similar to mine? Do MS-DOS products such as (or similar to) Procomm or Laplink work properly? Do they operate at the highest baud rates? How are you attaching the devices (e.g. direct/kernel/ virtual)? Another annoying problem (unrelated to Merge): I have four serial ports on my '386 machine. As is typical with many AT clones, the ports may each be configured to one of four addresses (called COM1-COM4 in the MS- DOS world), and one of two interrupt levels (IRQ2 and 3). The device drivers that come with the system apparently don't allow serial ports to share interrupt levels. It's puzzling because the documentation indi- cates that multiport boards use single interrupt levels. A command called ttypatch is used to configure the drivers. I've tried using ttypatch to configure two of my single ports (at dif- ferent addresses, of course) to a single interrupt level. I can start a getty on the first device with no problem. As soon as I start a getty on the second device, the first one fails (the getty's appear to interfere with each other). Stopping the second getty removes the problem. I can reproduce the same problem by reversing the ports also. So it seems that all four ports work. But I can't let them share inter- rupts, so I can only use two at a time!. So how do the multiport boards work? I don't want to buy one - I figure the configuration I've got ought to be supported - it's common enough. Is there anyone out there that has overcome this problem? Thanks in advance for any suggestions. -- Bill Michaelson, COS, Inc. \ "Better to keep your mouth shut, and let Voice 609-771-6705 / people think you're a fool, than to open rutgers!princeton!mccc!cosi!bill \ it..." CompuServe 72416,1026 / -Mark Twain