1 General Information
The Quatech, Inc. DSC-200/300 provides two RS-422 or RS-485 asynchronous serial communication interfaces for IBM-compatible personal computer systems using the PCI expansion bus. The DSC-200/300 uses Quatech's new Enhanced Serial Adapter design. Legacy serial port data rates are limited to a maximum of 115,200 bits per second. Quatech Enhanced Serial Adapters can achieve data rates as high as 921,600 bits per second.
As a PCI device, the DSC-200/300 requires no hardware configuration. The card is automatically configured by the computer's BIOS or operating system. The two serial ports share a single interrupt line and are addressed in a contiguous block of 16 bytes. A special interrupt status register is provided to help software to manage the shared interrupt.
The DSC-200/300's serial ports are using 16750 Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitters (UARTs). These UARTs contain hardware buffers (FIFOs) which reduce processing overhead and allow higher data rates to be achieved. The 16750 contains a 64-byte FIFO and can transmit and receive data at a rate of up to 921,600 bits per second. The 16750 is recommended for heavy multitasking environments and for applications involving high data rates.
The DSC-200/300 is supported under several popular operating systems and environments. Contact the sales department for details on current software offerings. Most device drivers are available for download from the Quatech world wide web site at http://www.quatech.com.
Quatech DSC-200/300 User's Manual | 7 |
