Recommendations for a serial port card you can actually BUY?

[Dmitry Pryanishnikov]

Hello!

On Thu, 5 Oct 2006, Karl Denninger wrote:
> The problem that is nailing me particularly hard right now is the second one
> - I have embedded control systems that I speak to over a RS-232 interface
> (the devices are actually '485 on a common bus but talked to via a 232/485
> converter) and it simply does not work on 6.x using the Comtrol driver
> at all.  100ms delays and the like are one thing - we're talking about
> delays in characters reaching the application of one second or more, and in

   What makes me wonder is whether delays you're seeing have the same nature
as recent watchdog timeouts on various Gbit NICs observed by many RELENG_6
users (interrupt processing scheduling problem I suspect), or they're strictly 
rp(4)-specific.

> With FreeBSD 5.x being EOL'd this is now turning into a critical problem.
> I can't in good conscience put packages out there that have been EOL'd nor
> offer meaningful support on them. While 5.4 has been reasonably stable for
> some time, that is now declared a "dead" release.  5.5 is similarly on that
> road.  The only right path forward is into the 6.x world, but I can't get
> there from where I am now unless this problem can be resolved.

   If I were you, I'd try to prepare easy-repeatable test case so developer
(or just curious and clever person) who has Comtrol Serial Port Card could
recreate the problem. And no, I don't have either hardware or time available.

[ Cost considerations are totally skipped cause they're irrelevant to software
regressions like the one you're seeing... ]

Sincerely, Dmitry
-- 
Atlantis ISP, System Administrator
e-mail:  dmitry at atlantis.dp.ua
nic-hdl: LYNX-RIPE