> The idea being that early PC designs didn't expect that you would need to > access more than two serial devices simultaneously and that you would space > them so that so as to avoid IRQ conflicts when using them. If you have ever > run out of IRQ's trying to configure a machine, you can see why this was an > essential mechanism. It was also possible to use irq2/9 for serial, as well as irq5 (irq5 was often used for a second parallel port). Oh, the delights of configuring the isa machines. Many cards had several irq options, but these often meant re-configuring all of your other cards to clear space. I had an old 386dx40 with all eight slots used as follows: 1 - Graphics card 2 - NIC (SMC) 3 - Sound card (SB16) 4 - Multi I/O (onboard IDE was dead, plus I needed com3 and lpt2) 5 - CD-ROM interface (for an old Mitsumi single speed!) 6 - modem (a blistering 14k4) 7 - SCSI controller 8 - Scanner card (for an old hand scanner) What a PITA that was to set up... Regards, Ozz.
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