Old 8 port digiboard

Question

I have the following board and a cable to suit, the card is a DBI A/N 30000354 , REV J ,S/N 1151048 , 8xRS232, it was originally used on a Theos operating system, running multiple terminals and printers.

I still have an old Theos system but wonder if it is possible to use this card on Windows XP or Windows 7.

If so could you please advise re drivers and switch settings etc.

Has not been used in many years.

Answer 1

This sounds as if it's a Digi PC/8 ISA board, the one that has many DIP switches across the bottom edge of the board. As I recall it, there's an 8-way DIP switch to set the port address for each of the eight ports, and there's a 10-way switch to set the status port address which informs the driver, among other things, which port signalled the interrupt.

I can't say I've ever tried installing one in a Windows machine, mainly because we don't have anything around with ISA slots in it any more.

Answer 2

I agree this sounds like the PC/X card. It may have a set of pal chips defining the Theos i/o address of each serial port and IRQ used. This card used the build in operating system serial driver. Based on the I/O addresses and IRQ defined by the hardware. I think it will be difficult finding a PC that has an ISA slot and running the new versions of windows. Here is a link for configuring it in an older version of windows it my still work with the newer version but has never been test.
Hardware guide URL.
http://ftp1.digi.com/support/documentation/90029700a.pdf
Here is the URL to a number of old windows installation help.
http://www.digi.com/support/kbase/kbaseresults.jsp?formkbos=62&formkbsubfamily=31&formkbkeyword=installing+