8-port Intelligent RS-232 Card

Introduction

The PCL-844 Intelligent 8-port RS-232 Card is designed for lab and industrial applications where a PC needs to communicate with many serial devices such as terminals, modems and other instruments. If you need RS-422 interfaces for longer distance, connect the PCL-844 to a PCL-8442 to get 8 isolated RS-422 ports. You can install up to four PCL-844 cards for a total of 32 ports in any ISA bus based 286/386/486/Pentium PC.

The PCL-844's on-board 12 MHz 80286 processor takes over the communication load from the host PC. When you process large amounts of data from/to multiple serial ports, servicing the interrupts alone consumes a big percentage of your PC's CPU time. The PCL-844 serves as a high speed dedicated interrupt processor. Its CPU directly controls the board's CD180 RISC-based UART, guaranteeing 38,400 bps performance over eight high speed data ports.

The PCL-844 is virtually a self contained computer in its own right. It contains 512 KB of dual-port RAM which you can use to store and run programs. The dual-port RAM maps into the host system's address space to give you the fastest possible data transfer between the PCL-844 and the PC memory.

When the PCL-844 initializes, it downloads the driver software (which functions like a PC's BIOS) into on-board SRAM. This improves performance and makes version upgrading easy without hardware redundancy.

Each PCL-844 comes with software drivers, PC-ComLIB, for DOS and Windows. These drivers support most common languages, including C, Pascal, Visual Basic, Quick Basic, assembly and Clipper. The PC-ComLIB package also includes the DataScope data viewer, terminal emulator and serf-diagnostic utilities for easy troubleshooting and debugging.

Applications

• Data acquisition and control with RS-232/RS-422 based devices
• PLC monitoring and control
• Instrument controller, distributed control system
• Modem server, database server, POS controller
• Multi-user system

Features

• 12 MHz 80286 processor, CD180 RISC-Based UART, 512 KB dual port RAM.
• Baud rate up to 38,400 bps with eight ports on line
• Complete RS-232 modem control signals
• Maps to just 16 KB of system memory Choose one of six addresses from C8000 to DC000
• Many IRQ options: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12 or 15
• Easy-to-use menu driven installation program
• LEDs on connection box let you monitor the TxD/RxD status of every port
• Links to peripherals up to 4,000 feet from controller (RS-422) with PCL-8442

Specifications

Board

• Number of ports: 8
• Processor: 12 MHz 80286
• Dual-port RAM: 512 KB
• SRAM: 16 KB
• UART: RISC-based CD180
• Total ports in one system: 32
• Operating temperature: 32 to 122 degF (0 to 50 degC)
• Power consumption: +5V@1.5A, +12V@120 mA, -12V@180 mA
• Dimensions: 13.3" x 4.7" (338mm x 120mm)
• Weight: 1.5 lb. (0.67 Kg)

RS-232 Interface

• Signals: TxD, RxD, RTS, CTS, DTR, DSR, DCD and GND
• Mode: asynchronous full duplex
• Communication rate: 50 to 38,400 bps
• Stop bits: 1 or 2
• Parity: even, odd or none
• Data bits: 7 or 8

DOS Driver

• Optimized, small-size resident (TSR) interrupt driver
• Supports standard DOS COM: ports
• Supports C, BASIC, Pascal, Clipper and assembly
• Includes DataScope data viewer, terminal emulator and self diagnostic utilities for easy troubleshooting and debugging

Windows Driver

• DLL driver for Windows 3.0/3.1
• Supports Visual Basic, Microsoft C++, Borland C++ and Turbo Pascal

Ordering Information

PCL-844 

8-port Intelligent RS-232 Card

PCL-8442/110 

Isolated 8-port RS-232/422 Converter (110 V)

PCL-8442/220 

Isolated 8-port RS-232/422 Converter (220 V)

PCL-747/8B 

8-port RS-232 connection box

PCL-747/8C 

1-to-8 RS-232 cable