From owner-freebsd-hardware  Tue Jan 27 14:48:24 1998
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG>
Received: (from majordom@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA04054
          for hardware-outgoing; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:48:24 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG)
Received: from gw1.asacomputers.com (root@gw1.asacomputers.com [204.69.220.10])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA04036
          for <freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG>; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:48:15 -0800 (PST)
          (envelope-from kedar@asacomputers.com)
Received: by gw1.asacomputers.com id LAA22660; Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:35:00 -0800 (PST)
Message-Id: <2.2.32.19980127223315.017e413c@gw1>
X-Sender: rajadnya@gw1
X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.2 (32)
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
X-Priority: 1 (Highest)
Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:33:15 -0800
To: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
From: Kedar <kedar@asacomputers.com>
Subject: Re: Serial I/O. 
Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
Sender: owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org

>There are some industrial systems that offer this sort of 
>functionality.  What other requirements do you have for the system?
>(CPU, peripherals, etc.?)

        P-II (or PPRO).  5/6 PCI.  Lots of memory.  Rackmount, of course.

>> > 3) The BIOS serial communications should require no fancy communications
>> > protocols, ie. we should be able to use a dumb terminal. 
>This is quite specialised; depending on what you want to do with the 
>BIOS you might be able to live without this if you set it up right 
>beforehand.

        O.K.  We are thinking of having somebody customize the BIOS for this
purpose. Using SBC's.  Would rather use regular motherboards.  Never done
it, don't know how difficult/easy it is.

>That's asking for a lot; it sounds like what you really want is a smart 
>console emulator card.

        Any specific examples, please?
        Thanks!  :-)

Kedar.