Tony Pater wrote to Will Honea on 03-31-1998
TP>  If such be the case, then how would allocation of IRQ's and
TP> addresses
TP>  work given that spare IRQ's may or may not be available if as I intend,
TP>  to have:
TP>   . 4-port intelligent Serial card 
Assuming SIO.SYS, uses up to 4 ports (no problem) and 1 IRQ?  I'm not
up to speed on this card.
TP>   . 2 printers  (laser/ink-jet)
No choice: IRQ 7 for LPT1, IRQ5 for LPT2 if you use /IRQ, which I
would if possible.  BTW, it's all or none here - can't use /IRQ for one
and not the other.
TP>   . scanner (scsi),
Port addresses, 1 IRQ may be required (some el cheapo scanner SCSI
ports don't use an IRQ, but then you have a driver problem)
TP>   . graphic pad (Summa-sketch)
TP>   . Mouse
For my enlightenment, how are you going to use 2 pointing devices?  I
thought that only one at a time was definable - but since you brought
it up, I'm not sure.  Anyway, if it works there goes one serial port
and 1 IRQ - I have serious doubts about being able to use it on the
smart i/o card if it maps to a single IRQ since the mouse driver will
grab the IRQ and deny it to the comm drivers.  Oops, just re-read this.
 You are OK if you have a program that can drive the pad, but it will
NOT share controll of the mouse pointer so this may be messy
TP>   . APC Power management
Uses one serial port - one smart i/o board channel taken
TP>   . 2 x Serial connects to RF gear
2 more smart i/o ports taken - I'm still assuming the whole card
shares an IRQ.
TP>   . Sound Card
1 IRQ, 2 DMA, 
TP> 
TP>   Presumably the mouse can go on to PS/2 connection (Tyan mobo)
OK, port is no problem, IRQ 12 is used for the mouse
TP>   The graphics pad and APC would go on the Serial card along 2 RF gear
TP>   connections, though how to swing a modem on top escapes me for the
TP>   moment.
So far, this is not a problem IF the smart I/O card shares a single
IRQ for all the ports.  You will have IRQ 3 or 4 for the smart I/O, 5
and 7 for printers.  That leaves you IRQ 2 and the unused one of either
3 or 4.  The sound card should be able to use IRQ 10, the PS/2 mouse
will want 12, and the SCSI card can probably be selected to user IRQ
15.  These are normal enough assignments.   Looking at your IRQ map,
that will leave you with IRQ 2 (actually hooks to 9) and 3 on the low
side and IRQ 11 one the high side to play with for a modem.  Piece of
cake! :-}
TP>   Assuming that an 'intelligent' Serial Card (STB/Stallion), can 
TP>   multi-plex (hope I'm using the right term), would it be necessary
TP>   to specify each and every IRQ/address for each item  
printers/scanners/
TP>   RF gear/etc.), and if so how does leaving off the '/IRQ' switch on
TP>   the Printer(s), help if I'm running most of this stuff simultaneously ?
You would specify the IRQ/port assignment information on the SIO.SYS
line - COMM.SYS won't work in this case.  You would also specify the
IRQ/port for a modem if you put it in.  The syntax would be
DEVICE=x:\dir\sio.sys (com1,3f8,3) (com2,2f8,4)
(com3,3e8,4)....(com5,ppp,4).  You will need the extended version of
SIO, since the base level supports only 4 ports of any mix.  I would
experiment with the unregistered 4 port version just to make sur it
works with the smart i/o, tho.
I would highly recommend using interrupts for printing: life is too
short and you have the apparent resources available.
As for the rest, you will have to go to the docs for sound card and
the SCSI adapter.  The usual choices would probably be IRQ 10 for sound
- that's what Sound Blaster allows  any way - and 15 for the SCSI.  If
you count, you will find that you still have IRQ 2/9 and IRQ 11 unused.
Being a trusting hardware type, I would install OS/2 in the simplest
configuration possible:  smart i/o card, printer card(s), IDE drive,
ATAPI CDROM.  If you have more than 1 IDE drive, you cause a slight
complication: you will need one more IRQ for a second IDE channel and
15 is the normally used IRQ.  Your SCSI would have to use IRQ 11 most
likely.  Anyway, install w/o the sound and SCSI cards.  Once you get
up, edit config.sys and set up SIO.SYS.  Before you shutdown, open the 
SYSTEM -> SYSTEM SETUP -> HARDWARE MANAGER folder.  Open the HARDWARE
MANAGER's properties notebook and, on the first page, set the hardware
scanning options to do a full scan on every boot.  Check the list also
and see if both printers were picked up and assigned IRQs as expected. 
Re-boot and check out the comm ports.  Power off and install the sound
and SCSI - do this in two steps if you want.  Boot, go to selective
install and install the sound card and the SCSI adapter.  You may have
to add IBMASPI.??? as a device to get the scanner to work, but that can
come later.
This should see you up and running.  You may need to play with some
settings and port addresses, but this should get the basic system up to
where you can start to install and check out the software for all the
devices, but get the basic install done and the ports recognized before
you even think about actually installing the scanner, radio, and UPC
programs.  Step by step, then you can solve one problem at a time - and
I see several to solve before you are happy.  Oh, well, that's what
hobbies are for: they consume any spare time you might have.......
 
Will Honea 
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