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To: S ren Schmidt <sos@sos.freebsd.dk>
cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Digiboard RealPort protocol ?? 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 17 May 1997 22:04:54 +0200."
             <199705172004.WAA23739@sos.freebsd.dk> 
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Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 20:15:58 -0500
From: Wm Brian McCane <root@bmccane.uit.net>
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> > Is this the same protocol used for the DigiChannel Boxes??  I have access to 
> > about 80 ports worth of digichannel's from a customer that upgraded his NCR to 
> > an HP9000, including the EISA interface cards for them (Do they make PCI?). I 
> > would be willing to throw my weight into a project to make these boxes work 
> > with FreeBSD, if I could find out what is required to talk to them.
> 
> Donno, the realport protocol are used to control the PortServer products
> from the host so it looks like a bunch of normal tty ports to the
> programs running on the host...
> 
That's not it then.  These are multiport serial boxes.  They look a LOT like 
Penril Serial port boxes for connecting to AIX computers, or via a VCX1000.  
It is a black box approximately 11-12" long, 1-1/2 - 2" high, and 7-8" deep.  
It has an LED display on the front which gives basic information about status, 
and has little chaser lights to show which port is active.  These boxes can be 
daisy-chained, I think up to 4 per cable, and up to 2 cables go into each 
internal card on the PC.  This gives a total of 128 serial ports on a card.  
You can also attach a CSU/DSU to run a concentrator at a remote site.  I have 
driven all 64 ports on one cable at 38400 continuously to test throughput (I 
was bored 8), and the protocol analyzer said it was receiving at 383? cps, so 
they are pretty fast.  There was also no significant load on the server from 
doing this, so they are fairly light on the interrupts.  Anyway, I would love 
to be able to use these, and was hoping we were trying to accomplish the same 
goal.

	brian