BNU Revision 5 FOSSIL Communications Driver
                                                     Version 1.70

    Some of BNU's unique and more interesting features are:

         o    BNU  has  been  built  to  handle up to 4 COM ports
              concurrently in up to 16 different configurations,

         o    It has an "open architecture"  which  will allow is
              adaptation later  in  its  development  to  support
              multiport shared    interrupt    and    intelligent
              asynchronous IO boards,

         o    It supports the 16550 USART in fully buffered mode,
              providing the capability of much higher baud rates,
              performance and  significantly  less  CPU  overhead
              especially in multitasking environments,

         o    The driver is extremely FAST, optimised  for speed,
              and takes up very little memory,

         o    Incorporates  an optional "diagnostic" mode, so you
              (the user) can inspect  the  state  of  the  FOSSIL
              driver itself;    assisting   in   debugging    and
              optimisation of   software  being  written  to  use
              FOSSIL calls,  and   in   attempting  to  determine
              problems in  software  using a FOSSIL,  such  as  a
              mailer, BBS or BBS 'door',

         o    Has  'hooks'  for  an installable driver to support
              network and  multitasking  software,  forcing  ill-
              behaved processor intensive programs  to  give more
              of their  time-slice to the system when inactive or
              when simply "polling"  communications  or  keyboard
              functions for activity or status reports,

         o    Allows 'fast' routing of screen output directly via
              the ANSI  driver,  making  "FOSSIL"  screen  output
              calls significantly   faster  than  going  via  DOS
              itself,

         o    Allows for problems  in  some  XT  &  AT BIOS' when
              16550AN's are installed:  very often  a  BIOS  will
              not 'see'  the  communications  chip during startup
              diagnostics -  so   BNU  will  force  the  BIOS  to
              recognise it automatically,

         o    Provides a full range of utility functions  in  the
              same .COM  file,  including built-in carrier watch,
              system reboot, lock baud rate and/or communications
              parameters and allowing  some  PC  BIOS  compatible
              non-FOSSIL aware  software to take advantage  of  a
              interrupt driven communications,

         o    Allows   resizing  of  communications  buffers  and
              locking/unlocking   of   baud   rates   and   other
              communications parameters "on-the-fly",

         o    Provides a means of displaying the currently loaded
              driver's "status" and active parameters.

                      BNU Revision 5 FOSSIL Communications Driver
                                                     Version 1.70