I have recently acquired the need for another com port and am already using com1 (mouse) and com2(UPS) and found the following paragraph in a FAQ for the palm pilot (the palm pilot is a PDA that has a syncronization cradle that connects to a com port):
-------------------- What to do if you do not have a free serial port One problem I encountered was that I did not have a free serial port. My mouse is on cua0 and my modem on cua1. For a while I had to switch the Pilot cradle with my modem. This was highly annoying because I could not use the modem while I was playing with my Pilot. I solved this with a $29 dollar ISA card I found at a local computer story, local as in locally owned and operated. The card is called the COM-5 card and is manufactured by Mouse Systems. The card is useful because if COM1 and COM2 are in use then COM3 and COM4 are not available. A COM port is simply a label that identifies a specific IRQ and address. COM1 and COM3 share the same IRQ as does COM2 and COM4. But this card allows you to add another serial port at any combination of IRQ and address that you desire. I have mine set on IRQ 12 and address 238. To get this to work with Linux all I had to do was tell Linux to map this specific address and IRQ combination to the device /dev/cua2. The following command does this: setserial /dev/cua2 port 0x238 irq 12 autoconfig It tell Linux where the serial port is available and to what device to map it. With this working I was able to play around with my Pilot while using my modem. Also I now have an extra serial port should I need it for other tasks. ------------------- Someone at a local computer store is trying to convince me that I can do this with any I/O card. He gave me one that has jumpers which allow the following: Serial Port 1: COMA can be Com1(3F8) or Com3(3E8) with IRQ either 3,4,5 Serial Port 2: COMB can be Com2(2F8) or Com4(2E8) with IRQ either 3,4,5 At the moment, here are the interrupts that are in use: 0: 518753 timer 1: 18301 keyboard 2: 0 cascade 5: 3 sound blaster 11: 86783 NE2000 12: 28599 PS/2 Mouse 13: 1 math error 14: 76318 + ide0 15: 0 + ide1 Can I somehow use this card and assign irq 5 to the new com port and move the sound card to say 7? If some could someone be kind enough to state how:) If not can I assume that I need this specific Com-5 card mentioned above? Cheers. -- Colin Telmer, Institute of Intergovernmental Relations School of Policy Studies Building, Room 309, Queen's University Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L-3N6 (613)545-6000x4219 <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <http://terrapin.econ.queensu.ca> -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
