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From: Andrew.Gordon@net-tel.co.uk
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Date: Fri, 17 Mar 95  0:25:27 +0000
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Subject: Re: Multiport serial cards
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> Hayes ESP products (inexpensive at $600 for an 8 port card;
> can look like a big 16550 and so driver work needed; Hayes is in
> chapter 11 and at least some distributors claim they can't get
> product);

I have had bad experience with ESP cards.  Most of the problems were down
to bugs in the Windows drivers supplied for driving the card in inteligent
mode, and so are not a problem to a FreeBSD driver.  However,  we did
suspect that one particular problem we were having with XON/XOFF was in the
hardware implementation of XON/XOFF rather than the driver - though it is
hard to tell.  After much timewasting with Hayes tech support, we gave up
and switched the ESPs into their 16550A emulation mode (which works fine) -
rather expensive for just a 16550A card though.

If you are thinking of writing a driver, Hayes have datasheets on the
chipset and bus interface (about 75 pages).  I can easily send you a copy
if you have difficulty getting it from Hayes.

Andrew Gordon.