Best way to add serial ports to STABLE machine?

[clayton rollins]

On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 stan <stanb at panix.com> wrote:
>
>I've got a bunch of what I call "2nd generation" HP Vectras that I'm 
>redeploying for an application that gets input for Serial RS-232 devices. 
>At the moment the most input devices any 1 computer has to deal with is 2, 
>and I thought I would be in good shape using the on motherboard ports (as I 
>have done on the "first generation" Vectras).
>
>However, I just discovered that these machines have a 8250 serial chip 
>instead of a (useful) 16550A chip. Even ruining minicom against this port 
>locks the machine up :-(
>

Someone should smack that engineer around a bit. :)

>
>Now, I can easily disable this port in the BIOS.
>
>So, whats the best (most FreeBSD compatible way) of adding an extra "good" 
>serial port or 2?
>
>I've had success in the past with ISA card serial port cards to add 3rd and 
>4th ports. But I'm wondering if I can even still buy something this old?
>
>Suggestions?
>

It sounds like you've got the right idea, and being able to disable the
onboard crap really helps.

I want to say this, though. I'm a FreeBSD newbie, and may be overlooking
bsd specific issues. (I do see a variety of serial controllers listed in the
hardware guide for 4.8, so I'd assume that this is fully possible. Try it on 
a
single machine before you order all your serial cards...)

About availabiliy, I was able to find a variety of cards on
http://www.pricewatch.com . So, they're out there.

Good luck reviving those machines,
Clayton

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