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1992-07-16
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25 lines
TIP #: 027
KEYWORDS: Communications, Lost Characters
UPDATED: October, 1990
PROBLEM: When calling a Bulletin Board System, random characters may be
lost.
SYMPTOMS: During a BBS session, if a key is pressed when receiving data from
the board, sometimes a character or two will be lost. The text
will be shifted to the left by however many characters were
missing. This normally happens on my system when I am receiving
color menus from the board. If I press a key while the menu is
being updated, portions of the menu will be missing or shifted
over.
SOLUTION: Get a serial card with 16550AFN UARTs. The 16550AFN has a 16 byte
buffer to handle problems with interrupt latency. The standard
serial port UART is either an 8250 or 16450. Neither of these
chips has a buffer. Interrupt latency is usually not suspected in
systems that are not multitasking, however I have seen this problem
occur on 8 MHZ and 12 MHZ 286 systems with no multitasking software
installed. Installing a buffered serial card totally solved the
problem.