[time-nuts] LAVA Computers (Canada) : 40 years of Serial I/O Cards

[Gregory Beat]

I have worked with IBM PC/XT computers and Ethernet (3Com) since 1983 (when new), while in graduate college (and worked summers for an IBM / Apple dealer).

At that time (8088/8086, 80286), Microsoft & SCO Xenix we’re popular for small multi-user systems.  This required a number of Serial ports on the ISA bus.

LAVA Computers (Lava-Link, one trade name) provided add-on ISA cards for this early market.  40 years later, LAVA is still in business offering ISA, PCI, and PCIe serial cards, as well as some parallel port cards.

The Retail Point-of-Sale (POS) market segment is one of their largest LAVA customer bases.  Burlington Northern Railroad was an early LAVA customer in late 1980s.
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RS-232 supports cabling lengths longer than USB and require less software overhead and hardware.  Reliable Programming examples (circular queues) were widespread and taught in 1980s.  Ethernet/WLAN solutions were historically more expensive and required more expensive chipsets and greater software overhead (TCP/IP).
http://www.lavelink.com

LAVA serial cards use high speed 16550 UARTs capable of transfer rates us to 115.2 kbps, or 
ultra high speed 16550 UARTs with transfer rates up to 460.8 kbps. 
Hardware configurations include RS-232 or RS-422 signalling.

LAVA Serial I/O cards
https://lavaports.com/serial-cards/
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I currently use three DSerial-PCIe (PCIe 2-port RS-232) cards in three (3) computers that have Intel DH87RL motherboards.  They work FLAWLESSLY.
https://lavaports.com/serial-parallel-cards/products-pcie-bus-io-cards/dserial-pcie/
I use these Serial ports for GPS receivers, 10 MHz references, EPROM programmers, and serial ports on various radios, test equipment, and breakouts.

greg, w9gb
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** The ONLY issue with serial ports Microsoft Windows, since WinNT/W2K, is that the OS mistakes some Serial devices (like GPS receivers with 1 PPS on the serial port), as their Microsoft Serial Mouse (1990s MS hardware).  Solution was well documented. **

LAVA Computer MFG Inc.
2 Vulcan Street, Toronto,
Ontario, M9W 1L2, CANADA
T: +1-800-241-LAVA (5282) Toll Free
T: +1 416-674-5942
F: +1 416-674-8262
E: sales at lavalink.com
W: www.lavalink.com