Recommendations for a serial port card you can actually BUY?

[Karl Denninger]

Hi folks;

Ok, one of my pet peeves is coming around to bite me again.

I filed [kern/103137: Rocketport driver is broken in 6.x] a few weeks ago
after fruitlessly trying to get the Comtrol Rocketport driver to actually
behave under 6.x.  Its fine under 5.x, but under 6.x it fails badly, either
radically delaying input characters or in some cases sending multiple copies
upstream to the application (!)  The misbehavior is grossly increased by
doing such horiffic things as using select(2) and poll(2) on an I/O stream
associated with a port.

My original posting here drew an "unofficial" patch that did not improve
things at all.

Barf.

Ok, so that card is no longer supported (even though it is listed as
supported!  I've heard nothing about the listing of it being "supported"
being removed from the hardware list, and according to the web version, it
still there!  Supported it ain't when it doesn't work at all!)

So what do I buy to replace this thing?  Well, looking at the serial
hardware claimed supported, I seem to have a problem finding anything I can
actually purchase!  I don't need real high performance - a "16550" based
multiport card is fine.  I also don't want a $1500 solution - this isn't 
a $1500 problem.  $500 seems reasonable.

The Rocketport 550 looked promising, as its just a bunch of 16550s on the 
PCI bus, and so should work.

Guess what?  Comtrol EOL'd the entire 550 line several months ago.  They are
now "unobtanium", and their "replacements" are all smart cards - which gets
me right back where I started!

I can't find any evidence that any of the other 4 or 8-port versions claimed
to work under the puc() driver are actually in production either - I've been
unable to find any of THOSE for sale online or otherwise.

I have several Digiboards, and the Digi driver worked last time I looked at
it (back in the 5.x days), but they're ISA.  Useless in today's machines
which are increasingly ISA-slot devoid (including all of my present line of
servers!)

So..... I have an application that requires six serial ports, and would 
like ten.  5.x FreeBSD versions are being EOL'd per the announcement, 
forcing me to move to 6.x.  The Comtrol driver for the "Smart" 
Rocketport boards is broken in 6.x, and the PR appears to be one 
that will sit and rot.

What options do I have in the FreeBSD universe here guys?  This is a
real no-BS production application that has hundreds of deployed instances,
and it is in no way "obsolete" or something I intend to stop supporting.

I know serial I/O is passe for many, but some of us have applications that 
actually require it, and can't rationally be moved to anything else due 
to external hardware considerations.

--
-- 
Karl Denninger (karl at denninger.net) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights Activist
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