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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!csus.edu!netcom.com!abe From: abe@netcom.com (David Abercrombie) Subject: STB 4-COM serial card, com driver Message-ID: <1992Oct21.124822.8843@netcom.com> Keywords: IRQ, port, multiport, com, driver Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1992 12:48:22 GMT Lines: 46 I am trying to get an STB 4-COM serial board to work reliably under 386BSD. This board has four ports, each can be assigned one of eight possible IRQ lines (2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, or 15) and one of eight possible I/O port addresses. This board has the potential to be a great way to get multiple ports active using seperate interupts. I am having some problems with the board, however, and suspect com driver problems. I am using the standard 0.1 driver as updated with Christopher Rabitschko's com0 patch and Rodney Grime's fifo triger patch (patches #18 and #45 in Terry's patchkit). Is there any more recent driver or patches that I should be aware of before I delve into the driver code? After re-configuring and compiling for the new IRQs and port addresses, I sometimes can not use the ports, but sometimes they work great! I have OS/2 on the same box, and can use them with no problem. If I turn the machine on and select booting BSD, I have the following problem: I can start kermit, select my port and speed, and connect to the modem. I then type "at" and hit enter to try to get the "OK" result. Sometimes, I get no characters echoed to my screen after the initial "a", but sometimes I get the "at" echoed followed by a "K" but missing the "O". In both cases, the keyboard is not responsive, not even to Ctrl-Alt-Del. Occaisionaly, I can type a few "at" commands before the keyboard freezes. What has me puzzled is that I can boot into OS/2, use the ports for a while, and do a warm boot into BSD. I can then usually use the ports without any problems! It seems almost as if a UART register is not getting "set" or "cleared" properly by BSD, but it is "cleared" or "set" by OS/2 ??? This board does not use "real" 16550A UARTS, but instead has a single four-port chip. I have ordered the programmers manual for this chip to compare with my National Semiconductor UART Handbook. In the meantime, does anyone have any clues about what is going on here? Has anyone else gotten this board working 100% of the time? Is there any new, improved, (perhaps beta) com driver that I should try? Thanks! -- Dave Abercrombie lyra!abe@infoserv.com Oakland, CA abe@lyra.UUCP (510) 652-7131 abe@netcom.com