[RTTY] Com ports

wa9als wa9als@starband.net
Mon, 8 Jul 2002 19:07:37 -0500


> I am also intrigued by Sante's solution too! A friend of mine has told me
> about a similar card he got for his PC, and it only has one IRQ.
> Now, this is where I show up as being thick! Just how can you get a card
> that has all these COM ports, but is able to share a single IRQ? Is there
> some onboard software that controls the ports, and thus controls the IRQ?
If
> so, how come it doesn't end up causing a crash?

Yep, onboard "intelligence" - The Rocketport 8-port PCI card provides 8
ports and only uses 1 IRQ.  They say it can even be configured to somehow
use the PC clock and NO IRQs!  Beats me exactly how it's done.