Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 13:21:50 +1030 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: terry@lambert.org (Terry Lambert) Cc: msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au, terry@lambert.org, hsu@clinet.fi, hm@altona.hamburg.com, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Multi-Port Async Cards Message-ID: <199601300251.NAA12777@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <199601292056.NAA04426@phaeton.artisoft.com> from "Terry Lambert" at Jan 29, 96 01:56:26 pm
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Terry Lambert stands accused of saying: > > No, it won't. There is no hardware feature in the 8250-family UART that > > deasserts DTR when the machine has crashed. In fact, I know of no UART > > family that meets this criteria. > > There is a firmware feature. It's called BIOS POST initialization, and > it is dependent on you buying good hardware. Your hardware should: > > 1) Do a hard reset, not a soft reset, on triple fault (this is the > problem with not rebooting after shutdown on a machine with a > buggered keyboard controller INT 19 interface). This doesn't help if your system dies from another fault (eg. locked hardware). > If you are running a large site, invest $35 in a watchdog reset board. > Do it, do it NOW. There are BSD drivers for several of this type of > board. If you have a source for the $35 variant, I'd love to see it. The only reference I managed to track down was for a $400 product, which unsurprisingly failed to enthuse me. Currently I install 8-port relay boards in a nominated 'stable' system, and run lines from the motherboard reset pins to the relays. Crude, but _very_ effective. (Until someone runs the 'cylon' program I use to test the cards 8) > Any BIOS that does PSOT initialization of UARTs will drop DTR. As already observed, if you get far enough to have the POST happening, you're fine, however this is _not_ the situation that's of interest here. > This is really irrelevant. What is the use of not answering the phone > vs. bogusly answering the phone and not talking? Long distance charges? USERS. Count yourself _fortunate_ that you don't have to deal with them. > Most US LD companies (not TelAmerica) start charging after 6 seconds, > answered or not. Your customer is going to be pissed off by the fact > that he did not get service, and won't really give a damn about the > failure mode that caused him to not be serviced. Observed behaviour here is much to the contrary, I'm afraid to say. > Terry Lambert -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] "wherever you go, there you are" - Buckaroo Banzai [[
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