1 General Information
The Quatech, Inc. ESC(LP)-100 provides eight RS-232 asynchronous serial communication interfaces for Low Profile IBM-compatible personal computer systems using the PCI expansion bus. The ESC(LP)-100 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 ESC(LP)-100 requires no hardware configuration. The card is automatically configured by the computer's BIOS or operating system. The eight serial ports share a single interrupt line and are addressed in a contiguous block of 64 bytes. A special interrupt status register is provided to help software to manage the shared interrupt.
The ESC(LP)-100's serial ports are implemented using 16750-compatible Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitters (UARTs). These UARTs contain hardware buffers (FIFOs) which reduce processing overhead and allow higher data rates to be achieved.
The ESC(LP)-100 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.
ESC(LP)-100 User's Manual | 1 |
