Dennis Hayes, founder of Atlanta, Georgia-based Hayes Microcomputer Products, has been discussing his company’s strategy for the 1990s and two offerings high on his list of priorities are an ISDN interface board and a liberator communications board for early model personal computers – MS-DOS ones in each case, of course. Hayes is currently extolling the virtues of V32, X32 (X25 dial-up) and the V42/V42B error-correction and data compression systems. However, he sees digital communication systems taking over from analogue in the near future and Hayes reckons that an evolutionary approach will be needed. Central to this is the Hayes ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network board for MS-DOS micros, which will ship this spring. The board acts as an interface between conventional analogue technology – telephone, facsimile, modem – and the digital lines, by feeding data into an ISDN channel to the local telephone exchange. It enables users to bridge the gap between all-analogue and all-digital communications. It also does this at low cost, claims Hayes. Another product up Hayes’ corporate sleeve is the Enhanced Serial Port specification. Existing personal computer serial ports are based on technology that is eight years old. In 1981, when the personal computer serial port was developed, suitable modems moved data at only 300 bits per second and the design limits of the serial interface were set accordingly. Today, with 9,600 bits per second modems becoming the norm, the old personal computers cannot keep up. The modem either doesn’t perform to its rated speed, or worse, data is lost if flow control can’t keep up. Personal computers based on the 80286 and 80386 can handle the new modems, but users of the 8088 and 8086 boxes are hitting problems. Enter Hayes with its Enhanced Serial Port standard, which interfaces a conventional serial port plug directly with the newer personal computers allowing for very rapid movement of data over the serial link. Historically, such proprietary serial port systems were expensive, costing in excess of $1,000. According to Hayes, the Enhanced Serial Port standard can be built into a personal computer board for as little as $350. It opens up the possibility of very high-speed modems working in almost any personal computer, he said. Hayes also reckons the limits of the personal computer serial port will soon be reached by 80286 and 80386-based personal computers. The problem lies in the graphical user interfaces like Microsoft Windows, now coming on-stream. These interfaces are very easy to use, but they do take up a chip’s power. An interface such as Windows can commandeer one-third of the power of an 80286 microprocessor, for example. Add applications and the chip slows further, and the power available to drive the serial port is also cut away. Even the fastest 80386-based personal computer will be slowed to the point where attention cannot be given to the serial port. This is where enhanced serial port comes in. Enhanced Serial Port is analogous to the co-processors now appearing in high-end personal computers. Instead of having the main chip shoulder the load, the Enhanced Serial Port interface takes the strain, freeing up the rest of the personal computer to handle the crunching of numbers for the front-end software. By September, hardware and software products supporting the new standard will appear. IBM, which would benefit from enhanced serial port was not happy when Hayes approached its engineers with the idea last year. According to Hayes, IBM effectively told his engineers that the problem was one of software, and turned the company away. If you want an ally against an obstructive IBM, the most promising one these days always seems to be IBM’s soi-disant personal computer operating software partner, Microsoft Corp. Hayes went hotfoot to Redmond, Washington, where Microsoft gave him a warm welcome. The result is that Hayes is working with Microsoft to develop applications, which will come out later this year.
