Equinox question

[Super user]

In article <1855 at chinacat.Unicom.COM> chip at chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
>In article <1991Feb13.170319.13308 at virtech.uucp>
>	cpcahil at virtech.UUCP (Conor P. Cahill) writes:
>>In article <27B79130.5C72 at telly.on.ca>
>	evan at telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) writes:
>>>[Someone said that Megaport serial cards] won't do hardware flow control
>>>and modem control on the same port at the same time.
>>
>>That is correct.
>
>Conor...are you sure about that?  I use the Equinox boards.  I've done
>just about everything you can do with them except high-speed dialin/dialout
>modems.  According to the manual - it does work.  But I won't state that
>unequivocally since I haven't tried that one item.
>
>The way you get it is a little bit tricky.  The Megaport cards provide a
>pair of control signals per port.  It is up to the distribution box to
>route them to the appropriate pins, and the driver to interpret them as
>the appropriate RS-232 signals.  So, normally you can get DSR/DTR or
>RTS/CTS per port.  If you need both pairs, you need to steal the control
>signal pair from an adjacent port.  Megaport provides a utility which
>configures this.
>
Chip's right, we do support Hardware Flow Control RTS/CTS OR DTR/DCD.
The tricky part comes in when you need both. Very few peripherals need
both. Contrary to popular belief, Telebit to Telebit transfers work
fine. We download netnews using a Telebit with only xon/xoff flow control
setup. It seems to work fine. 

And Chip's right again, when in an earlier posting, he mentioned how
the equinox full modem control scheme was "a bit screwy". In order to
get eight lines, you've got to rewire and take two from a "donor port".
I've emailed chip about his posting. We're going to be changing to make
it easier for the user. We're not sure whether we will sell a different
dsub housing box, with six full-modem control ports and six data-only
ports on it, or provide a special adaptor which plugs into two six-line
ports and convert them to an eight full-modem line port and a four data-
only port. 

The disadvantage of the new 12 housing box, is that it has been called
"overkill" here, since it is doubtful whether most sites would have more
than 1 or 2 fax modems or Telebits. I welcome any input from the net.
Since we sell through Distributors, sometimes it is not as easy to get
direct customer feedback as when you sell direct.  Postings about MEGAPORT
from USENET are routed through the entire MEGAPORT division.  Feedback
from the Net really does make a difference e.g., we are going to change
from the ribbon cable to a 100-pin round cable which is neater--and 
shielded. 

I know this whole issue of full-modem control, Telebits, flow control,
donor ports is confusing (but it does work) -- but something confusing
should be changed. 

If I can answer any questions, please email me, of if you have a support
problem you can send it to: uunet!equinox!support and it goes to about
four-five people.