1 Introducing the Serial Parallel Controller

The Serial Parallel Controller allows you to increase the number of serial ports to add terminals, modems, printers, and other peripheral devices to your SBus- based SPARC desktop system. The card provides eight full-duplex serial ports, as well as one unidirectional Centronics-compatible printer port.

After installing the card in an SBus-based SPARC desktop system, you can connect eight additional serial devices and one parallel device per card. You can use the Serial Parallel Controller, with your system, to meet your need for low-end, multi-user applications such as data entry, acquisition, and process control. You can install additional Serial Parallel Controller cards or other SBus cards into available SBus slots in your system.

Depending on the number of available SBus slots in your system, you can use the Serial Parallel Controller with your SBus-based:

• SPARC system as a host for 8 (1 card) to 16 (2 cards) serial devices, plus 1 to 2 parallel devices.

• Desktop SPARCserver to support 8 (1 card) to 24 (3 cards) serial devices, plus 1 to 3 parallel devices.

Features

The Serial Parallel Controller offers the following features:

• Single-width SBus card requiring one SBus slot.

• Eight serial ports (RS-423 or RS-232 compliant, selectable by jumper blocks on your card).

• One unidirectional Centronics-compatible printer port.

• Supports SBus-based SPARC desktop systems.

• Device driver installation and configuration scripts.

• Independently programmable baud rates and port configuration.

• SBus programmed input/output interface.

• Baud rate of 50 to 38.4 k baud.

• Less than 0.01% error rate across all baud rates.

• 135 k baud total throughput, using flow control.

• Clear-to-Send/Request-to-Send (CTS/RTS), Data-Terminal-Ready (DTR), Data-Carrier-Detect (DCD), and Data-Set-Ready (DSR) modem controls on all serial ports.

• Supports Hayes-compatible modems.

• FCC Class B compliant for home use.