[rescue] Terminal servers (was: Just a thought - what would be a good starter SPARC system these days?)

[Sheldon T. Hall]

In Message: 17 of Date: 23 Oct 2001 22:42:21 -0000 did
jwbirdsa at picarefy.picarefy.com decree:

[snip]

> After pricing new terminal servers ($$$$$$$ and up), I'm trying to replace
> it with a PC stuffed full of serial ports. I have a Boca BB2016, which is
> very nice except that it locks up after about two minutes -- when I have
> time, I'll be playing with different I/O ports and interrupts to see if
> that makes it happier.

What you want is a PC serial board that puts all the ports on the _same_
IRQ, and some software that know how to handle that.

I have a good bit of experience with that sort of thing.  Get a Comtrol
Hostess card (8 ports, 16 ports, whatever) and a copy of Crosstalk Mark 4.
Both mid-80s products.

Comtrol and others made both many-IRQ cards and single-IRQ cards, so you
gotta be watchin' what your gettin'.

Crosstalk Mark 4 has very good VT-100 emulation, and does its own
multi-session stuff.  Straight MS-DOS, no Windows or other ad-ons required.
You can watch more than one VT-100 terminal at a time on one PC screen.
Keen scripting language, too.

I made a living off Crosstalk Mark 4 and multi-session scripted serial comms
for about 10 years, so feel free to ask me about it.  For once, I'll be able
to _answer_ a friggin' question here!

-Shel

--
Sheldon T. Hall
shel at cmhc.com
206-842-2858
206-780-7971