Equinox Systems Megaport SS Serial I/O Board Series Installation and operating manual

e
Hardware
Installation &
Reference
Manual
Megaport SS
Serial I/O Board
Series
PN 560092/B
March 1996

ii Equinox Megaport SS Board Series Hardware Manual
○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○
Notice © 1995, 1996 Equinox Systems Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduc-
tion without permission prohibited.
Equinox, Megaport, Megaplex, and SuperSerial are registered trade-
marks of Equinox Systems Inc. All other brands and product names
are trademarks of their respective holders.
Equinox makes no representations or warranties with respect to the
contents hereof and specifically disclaims any implied warranties of
merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose. Information is
subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment
on the part of Equinox Systems Inc.
The equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for
Class A digital devices, pursuant to Part 15 of the FCC rules. These
limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful
interference when the equipment is operated in a commercial environ-
ment. This equipment generates, uses, and can radiate radio frequency
energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instruction
manual, may cause harmful interference to radio communications.
Operation of this equipment in a residential area is likely to cause
harmful interference in which case the user will be required to correct
the interference at his own expense.
NOTE: The manufacturer is not responsible for any radio or TV
interference caused by unauthorized modifications to this equipment.
Such modifications could void the user’s authority to operate the
equipment.
Megaport SS, Serial I/O Board Series, Hardware Manual
560092/B (March 1996)
Equinox Systems Inc.
One Equinox Way
Sunrise, Florida 33351-6709
[phone]
Fax: [phone]
BBS: [phone]
e-mail: [email protected]
FCC Notice

Table of Contents iii
Manual Organization This manual is comprised of three chapters and one appendix.
Chapter 1. Overview
This chapter describes the Equinox family of Megaport SS
Boards.
Chapter 2. Installation
Chapter 2 describes the Megaport SS Board installation.
Chapter 3. Port to Device Cabling
The Megaport SS Boards support a wide variety of
terminals, printers and modems. Chapter 3 describes
the SSM cabling options.
Appendix A. Support Procedures
Appendix A describes the steps you would follow to
receive technical support and to report problems with
this documentation.
Index

Contents
1. Overview
Megaport SS Boards........................................................1-1
Software Driver ................................................................1-2
Adaptor Cable ..................................................................1-3
2. Installation
Assigning the ISA I/O Base Address ................................2-1
Address Log.....................................................................2-3
BoardInstallation .............................................................2-3
EISA System Setup..........................................................2-4
Micro Channel System Setup...........................................2-5
Installing the Round Cable ...............................................2-6
EquinoxWiring Accessories.............................................2-6
3. Port to Device Cabling
Port Signal Names ...........................................................3-2
Conversion to RS-232 Signal Names...............................3-2
Telco Connector Pinouts ..................................................3-3
Wiring to Terminal Devices...............................................3-5
DB-25 Wiring....................................................................3-7
Modular Wiring .................................................................3-8
A. Support Procedures
Technical Support Procedures ........................................ A-1
Document Support Procedures....................................... A-2
Index

e
Hardware
Installation &
Reference
Manual
Megaport SS
Serial I/O Board
Series
PN 560092/B
March 1996

One Equinox Way
Sunrise, Florida 33351
Tel. [phone] FAX [phone]
BBS 954-746-0282
e-mail: [email protected]
FTP site ftp.equinox.com
e

viii Equinox Megaport SS Board Series Hardware Manual

Overview 1-1
1
Figure 1-1. Megaport SS Board
Overview
Equinox Megaport SS Boards are intelligent, high-speed (up to
115K bps) multiport boards providing high performance serial I/
O solutions for ISA, EISA and Micro Channel bus systems. All
port interfaces are standard RS-232 with modem control and
voltage surge protection.
The Megaport SS Board (shown in Figure 1-1) occupies a slot in
the host computer and provide the intelligent functions to "off-
load" the CPU serial communications processing tasks. Boards
are available for ISA, EISA and Micro Channel bus systems and
are compatible with operating systems using UNIX and LAN
applications. Table 1-1 lists the various models and characteris-
tics of the Megaport SST Boards available from Equinox.
SSP
Megaport SS
Boards

1-2 Equinox Megaport SS Board Series Hardware Manual
Table 1-1. Megaport SS Boards
PART
NUMBER MODEL BUS Type Ports
950267 SSM-8I ISA 8
950242 SSM-12I ISA 12
950241 SSM-24I ISA 24
950244 SSM-12E EISA 12
950243 SSM-24E EISA 24
950246 SSM-12M Micro Channel 12
950245 SSM-24M Micro Channel 24
Software Driver All Megaport SS Boards include a software driver diskette and
installation manual. EISA and Micro Channel machines must
run their setup utility whenever a board is added or removed
from the computer. See your system documentation on how to
run these utilities. Equinox EISA .cfg and Micro Channel .adf
files can be found in the root directory of the Equinox SST DOS
Diagnostic and Configuration Software for UNIX based systems
diskette.

Overview 1-3
Figure 1-2. Cable used with SSM-12 and SSM-24 Megaport Boards
Cable used with
SSM-12
Megaport Board
Cable used with
SSM-24
Megaport Board
The Megaport SSM-8 board has eight 6-wire RJ-11 connectors
on the back of the board.
Included with each Megaport 12/24 SS Board is an adapter
cable. The adaptor cable is connected to the board and
terminates with one or two 50-pin telco connector (illustrated in
Figure 1-2). These connectors are attached to any one of a
variety of splitters and distribution panels for device connection.
The cable used with Model SSM-12 Megaport boards terminates
with one telco connector providing port connections for up to 12
devices. The cable used with Model SSM-24 Megaport Boards
terminates with two telco connectors and provides port
connections for up to 24 devices.
Adapter Cable

1-4 Equinox Megaport SS Board Series Hardware Manual
Differences in
Megaport SS vs
Megaport CS
See Table 2-2 above for differences between Megaport SS and
Megaport CS serial I/O adapter cards. Note that the Equinox
Megaport SS product line supports device drivers that the
Megaport CS product line does not. Contact Equinox sales or
your Equinox reseller for more details.
Table 2-2. Megaport SS to Megaport CS Comparison
Feature Megaport SS Megaport 8/12/24 CS
Maximum Speed 115.2 kbps 38.4 kbps
Voltage Surge Protection Yes No
OS/2 Driver Support No Yes
AIX Driver Support No Yes
Solaris Driver Support No Yes
QNX Driver Support No Yes
UNIX ISA Auto Install Yes No
ISA Memory Requirements 16 K bytes 8 K + 8 K / Board
ISA I/O Address Configuration DIP Switch Header Strap
Control Signal Borrowing No Yes
DOS Diagnostics Yes No
Warranty 5 Years 3 Years

Installation 2-1
2Installation
The system requirements for ISA, EISA and Micro Channel Platforms
are discussed in this chapter.
Megaport SS Boards appear to the system host processor as memory.
That is, they are memory mapped devices. Each board is automatically
mapped into system memory at the time of device driver installation.
The device driver soft-configures all boards each time the system is
initialized (booted).
Assigning the ISA I/O
Base Address This section discusses the I/O address requirements for the Megaport
SS Board installed in an ISA system. (EISA and Micro Channel system
memory requirements are discussed later in this chapter.)
The ISA Megaport SS Board (shown in Figure 2-1) must be assigned a
unique I/O base address. If multiple ISA boards are installed in the
same system, a different address must be assigned to each board. This
procedure should be performed before the board is physically installed.
Figure 2-1. DIP switch location on ISA Megaport SS Board

2-2 Equinox Megaport SS Board Series Hardware Manual
SWITCH S1 IS SHOWN SET FOR I/O BASE ADDRESS 240H
Figure 2-2. ISA I/O Base Address Selections
1 2 3 4 BASE ADDRESS
OFF OFF OFF OFF 200
ON OFF OFF OFF 220
OFF ON OFF OFF 240
ON ON OFF OFF 260
OFF OFF ON OFF 280
ON OFF ON OFF 2A0
OFF ON ON OFF 2C0
ON ON ON OFF 2E0
OFF OFF OFF ON 300
ON OFF OFF ON 320
OFF ON OFF ON 340
ON ON OFF ON 360
OFF OFF ON ON 380
ON OFF ON ON 3A0
OFF ON ON ON 3C0
ON ON ON ON 3E0

Installation 2-3
Select a unique I/O base address from the list in Figure 2-2 for the ISA
host controller board. Assign the I/O base address by setting S1 (DIP
switch shown in Figure 2-1) to the selected address.
If you select an address that is invalid, simply shutdown your system
and select another address. It is not necessary to reinstall the software
driver after changing the I/O addresses.
Use the following procedure to install your Megaport SS Board.
Alternatively, you may follow the installation instructions presented in
your host system documentation.
1. Set the host computer system power switch to OFF and
disconnect the power cord.
2. Locate a free expansion slot.
3. Insert and secure the board firmly into the expansion slot.
4. Replace the power cord and turn the host computer
system ON.
You may need to refer to the I/O base address assigned to the board(s)
when installing the driver. Write the selected address for each board
installed in your system in the following table.
I/O Base Address Log
1._________ 2._________ 3._________ 4._________
5._________ 6._________ 7._________ 8._________
Address Log
Board Installation

2-4 Equinox Megaport SS Board Series Hardware Manual
System resources for EISA boards are allocated by a menu-driven
program provided by your computer system vendor. Usually there is a
bootable floppy disk called the Configuration Diskette which must be
run whenever a board is added or removed from the system. Each third
party board vendor (such as Equinox) supplies a database of configura-
tion information containing a list of system resources which the board
requires. The configuration (.cfg) files are located in the root directory
of the DOS Diagnostics and Configuration Software For UNIX
Systems diskette. When configuring the system you are asked to put
this diskette into the floppy drive so that the database information can
be copied onto the system disk for later use. Follow the procedures in
your system documentation for the use of this utility. (If you are also
installing an ISA board see the beginning of this chapter for details on
ISA I/O requirements.)
You need not be overly concerned with selecting valid address blocks
because the EISA configuration program is designed to make sure there
are no conflicts over system resources.
EISA Configuration
Diskette
EISA System Setup The EISA Configuration Utility that came with your computer reserves
system resources for each board (subsystem) that is installed. This
resource information is stored in the EISA system CMOS. When your
system boots, the Equinox software driver will read the assigned board
information directly from the CMOS configuration. Following is a
general discussion on using this system utility, you should consult your
host documentation for specific procedures for your system.

Installation 2-5
The Micro Channel Setup Utility that came with your computer
reserves system resources for each board (subsystem) that is installed.
This resource information is stored in the Micro Channel system
CMOS. When your system boots, the Equinox software driver will
read the assigned board information directly from the Micro Channel
CMOS configuration. Following is a general discussion on using this
system utility, you should consult your host documentation for specific
procedures for your system.
System resources for Micro Channel adapters are resolved by a menu-
driven program provided by your computer system vendor. Usually
there is a bootable floppy disk called the Reference Diskette which
must be run whenever a board is added or removed from the system.
Each third party board vendor (such as Equinox) supplies an Option
Diskette containing a database of required system resources. The first
time you turn on the machine with the board installed, an error code
appears and 2 beeps sound after the RAM is counted. This error
message indicates a configuration change was performed and the
machine must be reconfigured to recognize the SSM board(s).
Micro Channel machines require an Adapter Description File (.adf) to
automatically configure each board (adapter) installed. The system
identifies the adaptor by requesting a Programmable Option Select
(POS) ID from adapters installed in the computer. The POS ID for the
boards is 638A. The corresponding adf files (@638A.adf ) for the
SSM Boards containing the configuration information are located in the
root directory of the DOS Diagnostics and Configuration Software For
UNIX Systems diskette. When configuring the system you are asked to
put this Option Diskette into the floppy drive so that the database can
be copied onto the system Diskette for later use. Follow the procedures
in your system documentation for the use of this utility.
Micro Channel
System Setup
Micro Channel
Reference Diskette

2-6 Equinox Megaport SS Board Series Hardware Manual
3. Tighten the screws to hold the cable securely to the board.
Equinox wiring accessories convert the 50-pin telco terminating
connector(s) to DB-25 or RJ-11 modular jacks for distribution of ports
to external devices such as terminals, modems and printers. Telco
pinouts and wiring diagrams for the Megaport SS Board accessories are
found in Chapter 3, Cabling Devices To Ports.
Equinox 25-pair extension cables may be used to extend the distance
from the cable attached to the Megaport SS Board to the cabling
accessories. These cables plug into distribution panels, punch blocks,
fan-out cables and modular splitters. Extension cables in various
lengths are available from Equinox.
Installing the Adaptor
Cable
Equinox Wiring
Accessories
Connect the adaptor cable to the Megaport SS Board connector as
follows:
1. Locate the 100-pin female connector on the Megaport SS
Board.
2. Notice that the 100-pin cable connector is keyed such that it
can only attach to the board in one orientation. With the cable
properly oriented, insert the 100-pin male cable connector into
the female Megaport SS Board connector and press firmly.

Port to Device Cabling 3-1
3
This chapter describes the options available for cabling devices to ports
connected to Megaport SS Boards (see Figure 3-1). These ports
provide a standard RS-232 interface with modem control signals.
Port to
Device Cabling
Figure 3-1. SSM-8, SSM-12 and SSM-24 Megaport SS Boards

3-2 Equinox Megaport SS Board Series Hardware Manual
Port Signal Names
Conversion to RS-232
Signal Names
To assist in wiring the SSM- Megaport board, Equinox sells a
complete set of cabling accessories. See an Equinox Ordering Guide
for more information.
The names of signals on the telco connectors of the Megaport ports
indicate the direction of the signals. They are either inbound (re-
ceived by the Megaport board) or outbound (transmitted from the
Megaport board).
The following names are used for data signals:
DATA IN indicates data received by the Megaport SS board
from the attached device (inbound).
DATA OUT indicates data transmitted from the Megaport SS
board to the attached device (outbound).
The following names are used for modem control signals:
CNTL IN indicates the control signal received by the
Megaport SS board (inbound).
CNTL OUT indicates the control signal transmitted from the
Megaport SS board (outbound).
Data Signals
EIA Control Signals
The conversion to RS-232 from the Megaport telco pinouts and signal
names (DATA IN, DATA OUT, CNTL IN and CNTL OUT) is accom-
plished by using Equinox modular adaptors and/or RS-232 distribution
panels. The information below should assist in selecting the correct
modular adaptor for the particular application.