A long time ago I wrote about looking for a multi-port controller to use
for contesting. I ended up buying the FlexPort Serial Board Model 42,
the same unit AB6FO wrote about recently. It gives you four
16550-type UART serial ports capable of working on IRQs 3 through 15 and
on any of eight addresses. It also has two bidirectional LPT ports --
these can only work on IRQs 5 or 7, the bidirectional option is
selectable, and there are two addresses available for the LPTs. The unit
is made by Quickpath Systems, Inc., in Fremont, CA.
The tech support department consists of a man named Ping who is very
knowledgeable and extremely patient and helpful, esp. when shooting
mysterious symptoms in aging computers (like mine), reported by aging
operators (like me.)
The bottom line to this note is I can't make this unit do what I want it
to in my machine because of com and lpt ports which are integrated into
the mother board, and which take up IRQs and addresses, even if they're
not in use. To make matters worse, it doesn't look like I can swap the
old uarts out for 16550s. Rats.
If anyone is interested in a good deal on the Quickpath unit, e-mail me
at the address below. It's brand new and has only been used for a couple
of days of very intermittent testing. Thanks.
73, Steve N4TQO
merchant@crl.com
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