Octagon 5554 User manual

5554/5558
User’sManual
Doc. #03580 Rev 0198
OCTAGON SYSTEMS CORPORATION®
6510 W. 91st Ave. Westminster, CO 80030
Tech. Support: 303–426–4521

COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1993–94, 1998—Octagon Systems Corporation. All
rights reserved. However, any part of this document may be
reproduced, provided that Octagon Systems Corporation is cited as
the source. The contents of this manual and the specifications
herein may change without notice.
TRADEMARKS
Micro PC, PC SmartLink, Octagon Systems Corporation®, the
Octagon logo and the Micro PC logo are trademarks of Octagon
Systems Corporation. QuickBASIC® is a registered trademark of
Microsoft Corporation. ROM-DOSis a trademark of Datalight.
NOTICE TO USER
The information contained in this manual is believed to be correct.
However, Octagon assumes no responsibility for any of the circuits
described herein, conveys no license under any patent or other
right, and makes no representations that the circuits are free from
patent infringement. Octagon makes no representation or war-
ranty that such applications will be suitable for the use specified
without further testing or modification.
Octagon Systems Corporation general policy does not recommend
the use of its products in life support applications where the
failure or malfunction of a component may directly threaten life or
injury. It is a Condition of Sale that the user of Octagon products
in life support applications assumes all the risk of such use and
indemnifies Octagon against all damage.

Using CMOS Circuitry – 1
IMPORTANT!
Please read before installing your product.
Octagon's products are designed to be high in performance while
consuming very little power. In order to maintain this advantage,
CMOS circuitry is used.
CMOS chips have specific needs and some special requirements
that the user must be aware of. Read the following to help avoid
damage to your card from the use of CMOS chips.

Using CMOS Circuitry – 2
Using CMOS Circuitry in Industrial Control
Industrial computers originally used LSTTL circuits. Because
many PC components are used in laptop computers, IC manufac-
turers are exclusively using CMOS technology. Both TTL and
CMOS have failure mechanisms, but they are different. This
section describes some of the common failures which are common
to all manufacturers of CMOS equipment. However, much of the
information has been put in the context of the Micro PC.
Octagon has developed a reliable database of customer-induced,
field failures. The average MTBF of Micro PC cards exceeds
11 years, yet there are failures. Most failures have been identified
as customer-induced, but there is a small percentage that cannot
be identified. As expected, virtually all the failures occur when
bringing up the first system. On subsequent systems, the failure
rate drops dramatically.
■Approximately 20% of the returned cards are problem-free.
These cards, typically, have the wrong jumper settings or the
customer has problems with the software. This causes
frustration for the customer and incurs a testing charge from
Octagon.
■Of the remaining 80% of the cards, 90% of these cards fail due
to customer misuse and accident. Customers often cannot
pinpoint the cause of the misuse.
■Therefore, 72% of the returned cards are damaged through
some type of misuse. Of the remaining 8%, Octagon is unable
to determine the cause of the failure and repairs these cards at
no charge if they are under warranty.
The most common failures on CPU cards are over voltage of the
power supply, static discharge, and damage to the serial and
parallel ports. On expansion cards, the most common failures are
static discharge, over voltage of inputs, over current of outputs,
and misuse of the CMOS circuitry with regards to power supply
sequencing. In the case of the video cards, the most common
failure is to miswire the card to the flat panel display. Miswiring
can damage both the card and an expensive display.
■Multiple component failures - The chance of a random
component failure is very rare since the average MTBF of an
Octagon card is greater than 11 years. In a 7 year study,

Using CMOS Circuitry – 3
Octagon has never found a single case where multiple IC
failures were not caused by misuse or accident. It is very
probable that multiple component failures indicate that they
were user-induced.
■Testing “dead” cards - For a card that is “completely
nonfunctional”, there is a simple test to determine accidental
over voltage, reverse voltage or other “forced” current
situations. Unplug the card from the bus and remove all
cables. Using an ordinary digital ohmmeter on the 2,000 ohm
scale, measure the resistance between power and ground.
Record this number. Reverse the ohmmeter leads and
measure the resistance again. If the ratio of the resistances is
2:1 or greater, fault conditions most likely have occurred. A
common cause is miswiring the power supply.
■Improper power causes catastrophic failure - If a card
has had reverse polarity or high voltage applied, replacing a
failed component is not an adequate fix. Other components
probably have been partially damaged or a failure mechanism
has been induced. Therefore, a failure will probably occur in
the future. For such cards, Octagon highly recommends that
these cards be replaced.
■Other over-voltage symptoms - In over-voltage situations,
the programmable logic devices, EPROMs and CPU chips,
usually fail in this order. The failed device may be hot to the
touch. It is usually the case that only one IC will be
overheated at a time.
■Power sequencing - The major failure of I/O chips is caused
by the external application of input voltage while the Micro PC
power is off. If you apply 5V to the input of a TTL chip with
the power off, nothing will happen. Applying a 5V input to a
CMOS card will cause the current to flow through the input
and out the 5V power pin. This current attempts to power up
the card. Most inputs are rated at 25 mA maximum. When
this is exceeded, the chip may be damaged.
■Failure on power-up - Even when there is not enough
current to destroy an input described above, the chip may be
destroyed when the power to the card is applied. This is due
to the fact that the input current biases the IC so that it acts
as a forward biased diode on power-up. This type of failure is
typical on serial interface chips.

Using CMOS Circuitry – 4
■Serial and parallel - Customers sometimes connect the serial
and printer devices to the Micro PC while the power is off.
This can cause the failure mentioned in the above section,
Failure upon power-up. Even if they are connected with the
Micro PC on, there can be another failure mechanism. Some
serial and printer devices do not share the same power (AC)
grounding. The leakage can cause the serial or parallel signals
to be 20-40V above the Micro PC ground, thus, damaging the
ports as they are plugged in. This would not be a problem if
the ground pin is connected first, but there is no guarantee of
this. Damage to the printer port chip will cause the serial
ports to fail as they share the same chip.
■Hot insertion - Plugging cards into the card cage with the
power on will usually not cause a problem. (Octagon urges
that you do not do this!) However, the card may be dam-
aged if the right sequence of pins contacts as the card is
pushed into the socket. This usually damages bus driver chips
and they may become hot when the power is applied. This is
one of the most common failures of expansion cards.
■Using desktop PC power supplies - Occasionally, a cus-
tomer will use a regular desktop PC power supply when
bringing up a system. Most of these are rated at 5V at 20A or
more. Switching supplies usually require a 20% load to
operate properly. This means 4A or more. Since a typical
Micro PC system takes less than 2A, the supply does not
regulate properly. Customers have reported that the output
can drift up to 7V and/or with 7-8V voltage spikes. Unless a
scope is connected, you may not see these transients.
■Terminated backplanes - Some customers try to use Micro
PC cards in backplanes that have resistor/capacitor termina-
tion networks. CMOS cards cannot be used with termination
networks. Generally, the cards will function erratically or the
bus drivers may fail due to excessive output currents.
■Excessive signal lead lengths - Another source of failure
that was identified years ago at Octagon was excessive lead
lengths on digital inputs. Long leads act as an antenna to pick
up noise. They can also act as unterminated transmission
lines. When 5V is switch onto a line, it creates a transient
waveform. Octagon has seen submicrosecond pulses of 8V or
more. The solution is to place a capacitor, for example 0.1 µF,
across the switch contact. This will also eliminate radio
frequency and other high frequency pickup.

i
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE.........................................................................1
Conventions Used In This Manual .................................................... 1
Symbols and Terminology .................................................................. 2
Technical Support ............................................................................... 3
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW ............................................... 5
Major Features .................................................................................... 5
CHAPTER 2: INSTALLATION ........................................ 7
Equipment ........................................................................................... 7
Installation .......................................................................................... 7
Base Address .............................................................................. 10
Interrupt Selection..................................................................... 10
Installing the 5554/5558............................................................ 13
CHAPTER 3: RS–422/485 ............................................15
RS–422/485 Compatibility................................................................ 15
Operating Precautions...................................................................... 16
Baud Rate ................................................................................... 16
Two or Four Wire Communication ........................................... 16
Transmission Timing................................................................. 17
Programming Example.............................................................. 18
CHAPTER 4: TECHNICAL DATA.................................21
Technical Specifications ................................................................... 21
Jumper Settings ................................................................................ 22
Connector Pinouts ............................................................................. 24
PC Bus Pinouts.................................................................................. 25
WARRANTY

ii

Preface – 1
PREFACE
This manual is a guide to the proper configuration, installation,
and operation of your 5554/5558 Quad/Octal Serial Card. The
5554/5558 expansion card is part of the Octagon Micro PC system.
It is designed to be used with any other Micro PC Control Cards.
You can use your 5554/5558 card in conjunction with other Micro
PC expansion cards, tailoring your system for a wide variety of
applications. The 5554/5558 card can also be used in an IBM-
compatible PC. Micro PC cards are too tall to fit in an XT, but will
fit in AT industrial size and other AT-size cases. All Micro PC
products are modular, so creating a system is as easy as selecting
and plugging in the products you need.
CONVENTIONS USED IN THIS MANUAL
1. Information which appears on your screen (output from your
system or commands or data that you key in) is shown in a
different type face (note: the line breaks may not match those
on your screen, but the message will be similar).
Example 1:
Octagon 5025 ROM BIOS Vers X.XX
Copyright (c) 1992, 1993 Octagon Systems, Corp.
All Rights Reserved
Example 2:
Press the <ESC> key.
2. Italicized refers to information that is specific to your particu-
lar system or program. For example:
Enter filename
means enter the name of your file. Names of other sections or
manuals are also italicized.
3. Warnings always appear in this format:
The warning message appears here.
WARNING:

Preface – 2
4. Paired angle brackets are used to indicate a specific key on
your keyboard. For example, <ESC> means the escape key;
<CTRL> means the control key; <F1> means the F1 function
key.
5. All addresses are given in hexadecimal.
SYMBOLS AND TERMINOLOGY
Throughout this manual, the following symbols and terminology
are used:
W[ - ] Denotes a jumper block and the pins to
connect.
NOTE Information under this heading presents
helpful tips for using the 5700 Card.
Information under this heading warns
you of situations which might cause
catastrophic or irreversible damage.
H The suffix “H” denotes a hexadecimal
number. For example, 1000H in hexa-
decimal equals 4096 in decimal.
TTL Compatible Transistor-transistor-logic compatible;
0-5V logic levels.
WARNING:

Preface – 3
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
If you have a question about the 5554/5558 expansion card and
cannot find the answer in this manual, call Technical Support.
They will be ready to give you the assistance you need.
When you call, please have the following at hand:
Your 5554/5558 Quad/Octal Serial Card User’s Manual
A description of your problem
The direct line to Technical Support is 303-426-4521.

Preface – 4
This page intentionally left blank.

Overview – 5
CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW
The 5554/5558 Quad/Octal Serial Card is designed for applications
which require intensive serial communications such as protocol
translation, multiple bar code readers and radio modems. 16–byte
transmit–and–receiver FIFOs minimize overhead by the Control
Card. The card is 4.5 in. x 4.9 in. and operates over a wide
temperature range from –40° to 85° C and requires only 5V for
operation.
MAJOR FEATURES
4/8 Serial Ports
The 5554/5558 comes with either four or eight RS–232 serial ports.
Two of the ports are jumper selectable to RS–422/485 operation.
RS–485 Operation
Both RS–485 ports use a 5–position terminal block. The blocks are
routed to serial ports three and four. Each of the two RS–485
ports can be terminated or unterminated via jumper block W5.
Industry Standard 16C450 UART Compatible
Each of the serial channels can operate either in a polled or
interrupt mode. The interrupt mode is enabled via an internal
register of the 16C554 controller and associated jumpers. Each of
the interrupts is funneled into a single interrupt that can be
jumpered to one of the hardware interrupts, IRQ3 to IRQ7. The
interrupt request status of all channels can be read from a single
“read only” location to resolve which of the channels on the board
require service.

Overview – 6
This page intentionally left blank.

Installation – 7
The 5554/5558 Quad/Octal Serial Card uses one slot of the Micro
PC card cage. It may be used with any Micro PC Control Card or
Microcontroller.
The 5554/5558 contains static sensitive CMOS
components. The greatest danger occurs when
the card is plugged into a card cage. The card
becomes charged by the user and the static
discharges to the backplane from the pin closest
to the card connector. If that pin happens to be
an input pin, even TTL inputs may be damaged.
To avoid damaging your card and its components:
1. Ground yourself before handling the 5554/
5558 Quad/Octal Serial Card.
2. Disconnect power before removing or
inserting the 5554/5558 card.
EQUIPMENT
You will need the following equipment (or equivalent) to use your
5554/5558.
• Micro PC Control Card or Microcontroller
• 5554/5558 Quad/Octal Serial Card
• 5554/5558 Utility Disk
• Micro PC Card Cage
• Power Module
• PC SmartLINK or other communications software
INSTALLATION
Before installing the 5554/5558 Quad/Octal Serial Card, refer to
Figure 2–1 for the location of various connectors and jumpers and
to Figure 2–2 for functional block information:
Chapter 2 INSTALLATION
WARNING:

Installation – 8
G R- R+ T- T+
G R- R+ T- T+
W1 W2
W4
W3 W5
1
U11
U12
U10
U14
U15
U13
U5U3
U4
U1
U2
U7
J2
J6
J8
J4
J1
J3
J5
J7
RS-232
RS-232
RS-422/485
P3 P2
Base Address
Select and
Quad/Octal
Select
Interrupt Select
Interrupt
Channeling
RS-422/485 Select
and Network
Termination
1
5
11
17
12 12
12
Figure 2–1—5554/5558 Component Diagram

Installation – 9
Address Buffers
& Decode Logic Data Buffers
Interrupt Register
Quad
Serial I/O
Control
Ports 1-4
J2J4 J3 J1J8 P2P3
J5
J7 J6
Port 3
Port 4
RS-422/
485
RS-422/
485
Port 3
Port 4
W5
RS-422/485
Config &
Termination
Quad
Serial I/O
Control
Ports 5-8
Interrupt Funnel
W3
W2 W1
W4
Access
Indicator
Port 5
Port 6
Port 7
Port 8
Port 1
Port 2
Base + 7
Transceivers
PC Bus
Figure 2–2—5554/5558 Functional Block Diagram

Installation – 10
Base Address
The 5554/5558 is configured at the factory to operate in most
systems without any jumper changes. Jumper block W4 defines
the base address of serial port 1. As shipped, the base address of
serial port 1 is 100H, which is jumper configuration W4[1–2][3–4].
If there is another card in your system with a base address of
100H, you must use a different base address for the 5554/5558 or
the other expansion card.
W4: Base Address Select
Pins Jumpered Base Address
5554 Quad 5558 Octal
[1-2] [3-4][5-6] [1-2][3-4] 100H*
[1-2][5-6] [1-2] 140H
[3-4][5-6] [3-4] 180H
[5-6} Not jumpered 1C0H
* = default
NOTE: Jumpers [5-6] should not be connected on the
5558 Octal Card
Interrupt Selection
There are five interrupts available on the 5554/5558. The follow-
ing table lists the available interrupts and appropriate jumper
settings:

Installation – 11
W1 & W2: Interrupt Select
Pins Jumpered IRQ Reserved for
DOS
W1 W2
[1-2] [1-2] IRQ 3 COM2 & COM4
[3-4] [3-4] IRQ 4 COM1 & COM3
[5-6] [5-6] IRQ 5 Hard disk
[7-8] [7-8] IRQ 6 Floppy disk
[9-10]* [9-10] IRQ 7 LPT **
[1-3] [1-3]* No interrupts NA
* = default ** = Not used by Datalight ROM-DOS
NOTE: W2 applies to the 5558, ports 5-8.
With the four port 5554, only one interrupt is available. The
interrupt signal from each port is combined into one interrupt
source. That interrupt source can be jumpered to one of five
hardware interrupts at W1. The interrupt channeling at W3 must
be set for Quad operation with one interrupt:
W3: Interrupt Channeling
Pins Jumpered Interrupts
[2-3]* Quad - 1 interrupt
[1-2]** Octal - 1 interrupt
[2-3] Octal - 2 interrupts
* = default for 5554
** = default for 5558

Installation – 12
With the 5558 configured for eight port operation, the interrupt
signal from each port can be:
• combined into one interrupt source or
• combined into two interrupt sources: one interrupt for ports
1–4 and one interrupt for ports 5–8.
Depending on the options selected, the interrupt channeling at W3
must be set for either one or two interrupt operation and the
hardware interrupt configured at W1 and W2.
NOTE: The IRQ selected by W1 must be different than the IRQ
selected by W2. Also, on a 5558 configured for just one interrupt
source, W3[1–2] should be jumpered. W2 should also be configured
as "No interrupts", pins [1–3].
The following table shows the relationship between the various
ports and connectors:
5554/5558 Ports and Connectors
Port Connector
Port 1 J1
Port 2 J2
Port 3 J3 and P2
Port 4 J4 and P3
Port 5 J5
Port 6 J6
Port 7 J7
Port 8 J8