Re: Serial port expansion

["Paul Gordon" <paul_gordon@xxxxxxx>]

John,

I have added additional dual-port serial cards t  a couple of machines in
the last few years.

1 - I happened t  have several 2-port ISA cards just lying around in my
spares bin, which were "freebies" with modems I bought a few
years ago, when
28.8 was brand new! As the motherboards I was using still had a single ISA
slot, I used one of these without any problem. - you do of course have t
configure the resources manually on these, as they are not plug & play,
but
I currently have 1 working just fine in the new machine I am building on
the
bench, which is going to be the new HA PC (also running W2K)

2) - slightly more recent versions of the same can be had from ***lins. -
they have P&P ISA cards (2 serial) for about £20, and they also have a
PCI
dual-serial card for about £50, which is a lot of money for what it is, but
with a newer motherboard, using ISA cards might not be an option!

3) with W2K you have the option of using a USB-RS232 converter, t  add
individual ports, presumably up t  as many as you need... ***lins also sell
these for (I think) about £25 each, but I picked a couple up on special a
few weeks ago for £12 each, so I have 2 of these ready t  try out on the
abovementioned PC. - It already has 4 serial ports, but they're all full
aready! (Comfort, CM12, IRMAN, Meteor) - I have now ordered a temperature
sensor that needs another one, so I will try out a USB COM port in the next
few days when it arrives...

HTH.

Paul G.

(Of course, if you really do want t  add 8 ports all at once, then there
really is n  alternative t  the "hundreds of pounds" that you've
already
mentioned!)


>Don't think this is OT, but anyway,
>
>I am running W2K and in desperate need of more serial ports t  control
all
>the gadgets.
>Can anyone recommend any add-on cards?. I have looked at some, but
these
>all
>seem to be several hundred pounds?!?!
>A card with min of two ports needed, but more would be better.
>Any suggestions? (of any kind)
>
>cheers
>
>John

_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.




____________________________________
Automated Home UK
http://www.automatedhome.co.uk
____________________________________

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject t  http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/