From: tytso@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o) Subject: Re: AST Fourports? Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 03:27:08 GMT
From: rchen@sfu.ca
Reply-To: rchen@sfu.ca
What should an AST Fourport set me back. I have found them here in
Vancouver for CAN $595 (around US $475). They call it an
AST Fourport/AT Plus. Is that what I want? I heard that the
cards were cheap ($600 seems a bit much for a few UARTS).
Eeek. That's seems to be way too expensive. I got mine from a salvage
dealer for US $25. I doubt they retailed for more than US $150 or so.
Either that price is a complete ripoff, or it's not the same board. At
that price, you can buy "intelligent" serial boards which require much
less CPU power --- they handle a lot of the I/O grunge work, and use DMA
to send data to the CPU. They are typically used when you want one CPU
to support 8-16 timesharing users; thus, having sufficient I/O bandwidth
and not tying up the CPU with serial line management are a big concern.
- Ted